DevOps Data Infrastructure Team Leader

Description

About the role

Our DevOps team builds and operates the production streaming infrastructure that powers the company’s real-time data ecosystem. The team owns Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, Schema Registry, Elasticsearch, Kibana, and the supporting Linux, Windows, Kubernetes, observability, and automation layers across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments.

As a tight-knit group, we value clear communication, reliability, and continuous learning. Everyone contributes meaningfully. Joining us means working with passionate engineers who take pride in building robust, scalable systems, and supporting each other every step of the way. If you enjoy solving complex infrastructure challenges, automating data pipelines, and being part of a collaborative team that forms the foundation of the company’s data strategy, we’d love to meet you.

We are looking for an experienced and motivated DevOps Data Infrastructure Team Lead to lead our team and drive the design, reliability, and scalability of the systems that power our data platforms.

In this role, you will combine technical leadership with hands-on engineering, guiding the team in building, operating, and optimizing mission-critical data infrastructure while ensuring high availability, operational excellence, and alignment with business needs.

What you'll be doing:

• Lead and mentor a team of Data Infrastructure Engineers, fostering technical excellence, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement.
• Own the reliability, stability, and operational health of the company’s production data infrastructure.
• Operate and maintain core data infrastructure platforms such as Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana.
• Lead the design, deployment, and monitoring of scalable data flows across on-premise and cloud environments.
• Drive automation initiatives, including infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment automation, to improve platform reliability and operational efficiency.
• Oversee the development of internal tools and microservices that expose data platform capabilities as self-service services for internal teams.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, data, analytics, and platform teams to ensure reliable data integration and delivery.
• Define and maintain monitoring, alerting, and observability frameworks using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.
• Lead the response to production incidents, including root cause analysis, post-mortems, and preventive improvements.
• Plan and lead platform upgrades, capacity planning, and security improvements across data infrastructure components.
• Manage operational priorities, technical roadmaps, and infrastructure improvements aligned with business and platform strategy.

Requirements

What we're looking for:

• Strong Linux & Windows administration, troubleshooting, shell scripting, and performance tuning skills.
• Solid experience working with CI/CD pipelines, Git, and Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform or Ansible.
• Production Kubernetes and Docker experience, including troubleshooting, storage, networking, RBAC, and resource management.
• Strong proficiency in Python or similar languages used for building infrastructure tools, automation, and microservices.
• Deep hands-on experience with Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, and Schema Registry (Confluent or Apache) in large-scale production environments.
• Strong working knowledge of the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for observability, monitoring, and operational troubleshooting.
• Production Kubernetes and Docker experience, including troubleshooting, storage, networking, RBAC, and resource management.
• Strong experience implementing monitoring and observability solutions using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.

Knowledge:

• Strong understanding of distributed systems and event streaming architectures.
• Solid understanding of DevOps principles, Infrastructure-as-Code, and automation practices.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and hybrid cloud/on-premise architectures.
• Understanding of production operations, monitoring, incident management, and operational best practices.
• Familiarity with infrastructure security, access control, and secrets management.

Experience:

• 5+ years of experience working as Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, or production streaming infrastructure.
• 3+ years of experience leading engineering teams, including technical leadership, task prioritization, and team development.
• Proven track record operating and improving large-scale production data platforms and streaming pipelines.
• Experience leading incident management and operational response in production environments.
• Experience working in cross-functional environments, collaborating with engineering, data, analytics, and platform teams.
• Experience defining technical roadmaps, operational processes, and platform improvements.

Nice-to-Have Skills:

• Experience working with RDBMS systems such as Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL).
• Familiarity with stream processing frameworks such as Apache Flink or similar technologies.
• Experience with multi-tenant platforms, role-based access control (RBAC), and platform governance.
• Experience building self-service infrastructure platforms for internal engineering teams.

Behaviours we look for:

• Proactive Ownership - You take initiative, follow through on responsibilities, and care deeply about the stability and quality of the systems you maintain.
• Strong Collaboration - You work well in a team, share knowledge openly, and support others to reach shared goals.
• Problem Solver’s Mindset - You enjoy diagnosing issues, resolving complex system behaviors, and thinking critically to design resilient solutions.
• Customer-Centric Thinking - You understand the importance of internal users and strive to provide tools, services, and support that are reliable, usable, and empowering.
• Continuous Learner - You stay curious, seek out new technologies and practices, and embrace feedback to grow professionally.
• Bias for Automation - You look for ways to automate repetitive tasks and simplify complex workflows to improve efficiency and reduce risk.
• Operational Discipline - You value consistency, reliability, and documentation. You treat operational runbooks and observability as first-class citizens.
• Calm Under Pressure - You maintain composure during incidents, focus on solutions, and contribute constructively to post-incident reviews.

What we offer:

Our roles offer more than just a job; you’ll become part of the evoke family! We have created an environment where our people can thrive. Check out some of the fantastic benefits on offer:

• Hybrid work model
• Free parking in the building + free electric car charging
• Broad collective health insurance (with options for family members and extensions)
• Birthday gift + day off during your birthday month
• Refer a friend - bonus or gift card
• HitechZone membership
• Gifts on holidays and life events
• Ten Bis

More about evoke

We’re a business that embraces change and progress. The power behind big name brands William Hill, 888 and Mr Green, evoke is the new name for 888 Holdings. Marking a new sense of purpose, direction and ambition for the business, there couldn’t be a more exciting time to join us as we accelerate our journey to bring even greater delight to our customers with world-class experiences. That’s the future. That’s evoke.

At evoke, you’ll benefit from flexibility and a culture built on trust. We’ll give you the space to be yourself and the tools you need to protect our customers while they play. We’ll invest in your future to help you develop your unique strengths and build a career that’s right for you.

Apply

At evoke, we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion for the benefit of our company, employees, and communities. We foster a welcoming and safe workplace that values all forms of diversity and provides opportunities for growth.

Sounds good? Then you belong at our place! The first step in the recruitment process is kickstarting your application, followed by an initial screening call and an interview stage.

Apply today to kickstart your application with evoke!