Senior IT Specialist (Cloud Infrastructure and AI Solutions Specialist)

PRISM is a joint powers authority (JPA) that provides risk management and coverage programs for public entities throughout California, including 93% of California counties, 77% of California cities, 30 joint powers authorities, educational organizations, special districts, housing authorities, fire districts and 10 national participants through PRISM’s captive insurance company. Our organization is member driven meaning that our public entity members have numerous opportunities available to participate in the governance of our JPA.

One of PRISM’s greatest assets is its staff. PRISM employees are smart, creative, hard-working, and passionate individuals working in areas ranging from member services, risk control, claims administration, information technology, accounting, and risk pool administration. Working here requires energy, commitment, and teamwork. At the same time, we offer a great work environment built upon our Core Values of People, Families, Trust, Integrity, and Growth. We are looking for an individual who shares these values to join the PRISM team.

The Senior IT Specialist (Cloud Infrastructure and AI Solutions Specialist) is a hands-on technical resource assigned to the Digital Team and shared across the IT Department. The position provides cloud and platform expertise for applications, integrations, and various initiatives. PRISM operates workloads across AWS and Microsoft Azure;, Candidates are not expected to have equal depth in both platforms on day one — strong experience in one cloud platform, sound fundamentals, and demonstrated ability to learn new technologies matter most. Additionally, this position will provide support, along with other IT team members, for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Fabric environments.

This is an implementation and administration role, not a dedicated cloud architect, infrastructure engineer, database administrator, data engineer, or machine-learning engineer position. PRISM also expects to continue using third-party vendors for large-scale application hosting; this role provides informed internal technical review and coordination rather than replacing those relationships.

As PRISM's use of AI-enabled applications and exploration grows, this role is expected to increasingly help deploy and support hosted AI services within guardrails set by IT leadership. This is a growing part of the position; the role is not expected to build, train, or fine-tune machine-learning models.

A first review of applications will be conducted tentatively on September 8th, and weekly thereafter until the position is filled. Tentative interviews are scheduled for the week of September 15th.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

A. Cloud Platform Administration & Support

• Administer and support AWS and Microsoft Azure services (including support for Microsoft 365 and the Azure environment supporting Microsoft Fabric), including configuration and provision for appropriately separated development, test, sandbox, and production environments; day-to-day platform focus will vary by assignment.
• Support enterprise IaaS, PaaS platforms and SaaS application integrations (APIs, web services, secure authentication, file exchange), including configuration, troubleshooting, and vendor coordination.
• Support cloud security configuration, monitoring, and compliance; review cloud environments for identity, network, configuration, and cost risks, and remediate issues as needed.
• Manage cloud subscriptions, resource groups, tagging, cost allocation, and budget monitoring, with particular attention to catching and preventing unexpected cloud spend; implement practical cost guardrails as needed.
• Identify opportunities to automate administration and deployment processes using scripting, Infrastructure-as-Code, or CI/CD; maintain architecture diagrams, system inventories, and technical documentation, and ensure changes follow established change-management processes.
• Support Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID administration (onboarding/offboarding, role-based access control, least-privilege access, single sign-on) and provide Microsoft 365 and SharePoint administration support.

B. AI-Enabled Systems Support

• Help deploy and support hosted AI services and AI-enabled applications (e.g., Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock) within defined security and cost guardrails.
• Apply cost controls to AI sandbox and experimentation environments to help prevent unexpected spend.
• Help move validated AI use cases from testing into supportable, production-ready environments.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
• 3–5 years of hands-on professional experience with cloud infrastructure and platform services (IaaS and PaaS), including administration, configuration, integration, security, and support of production cloud environments.
• Strong practical experience with either AWS or Microsoft Azure, including hands-on use of IaaS and PaaS services, with working familiarity with the other platform and demonstrated ability to build proficiency as needed.
• Experience supporting cloud-hosted applications or SaaS platforms, including configuration, troubleshooting, identity and access, connectivity, and integration with underlying IaaS and PaaS services.
• Working knowledge of cloud identity, security, networking, monitoring, and cost-management fundamentals.
• Practical automation experience using scripting and/or Infrastructure-as-Code tools (e.g., PowerShell, Python, Terraform, Bicep, or Azure CLI), with familiarity with CI/CD concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Practical experience supporting hosted generative AI services or AI-enabled applications (e.g., Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, retrieval-augmented generation, or vector search).
• Application integration experience using REST APIs, OAuth/OIDC, SAML, middleware, or workflow automation platforms.
• Cloud and hybrid networking experience (virtual networks, subnets, routing, DNS, VPN connectivity, network security controls).
• Familiarity with cloud governance tooling (e.g., Azure Policy/Landing Zones, AWS Organizations/Control Tower) and cost-allocation frameworks.
• Cloud certification such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator/Architect, AWS Certified AI Practitioner, Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals or Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate, or a comparable credential.
• Experience in insurance, risk management, government, or another regulated environment.

For approximately the first month following hire, selected candidate will report to our Folsom office daily for training and onboarding. After successful completion of this phase, selected candidates will have the option to work full time in our Folsom office, or remotely from a home location within a commutable distance from our Folsom, CA office, or a hybrid of both options. Candidates must be able and willing to report in person to our Folsom location when required, which is generally every quarter, but could change based on business needs.

Physical Requirements

Physical requirements of this position typically include: reaching, grasping, talking, hearing, seeing, repetitive motions, exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or negligible amount of force constantly to move. Some travel may be required.