Hire cloud architects because the architectural decisions made in week 2 of a cloud program determine success or failure in year 3. A bad landing zone design means 15 subscriptions with inconsistent security, no cost visibility, and network routing that blocks legitimate traffic. Cloud architects design the foundation that prevents these problems — before any workload migrates.
Enterprise cloud architecture requires: Landing zone design — management group hierarchy, subscription topology, RBAC inheritance, policy assignments. Network architecture — hub-spoke, transit gateways, DNS resolution, hybrid connectivity. Identity — federation, conditional access, PIM, service principals. Governance — tagging, cost allocation, compliance policies, drift detection.