Lead DevOps Engineer

Job Description:

• Lead a small team of DevOps and platform engineers by setting expectations, giving feedback and coaching
• Line-manage the Internal IT lead and oversee the IT roadmap, priorities, budget and escalations
• Prioritise, scope and size DevOps work across reliability, security and cost
• Own the on-call rota and incident process; lead major incidents and fix root causes
• Partner with development and firmware teams on hosting and pipeline needs
• Communicate roadmap, risks and outcomes; serve as the day-to-day technical contact for AWS and vendors
• Own the multi-account AWS estate, including environments, deployments, reliability and upgrades
• Evolve the platform in Terraform across networking, EKS and serverless
• Improve CI/CD using CircleCI and GitHub Actions; lead cost reviews
• Operate Postgres, Redshift, Redis and OpenSearch with clear SLAs and backups
• Own the observability platform using ClickHouse and OpenTelemetry, including logs, metrics, traces, synthetics, SLOs and actionable alerting
• Own the data platform, including Glue pipelines, Apache Iceberg lakehouse, Redshift and CDC
• Serve BI users with traceable datasets and handle data requests with strong privacy practice
• Operate platform security controls covering identity, secrets, hardening, vulnerabilities and incident response
• Embed security in CI/CD
• Keep IT and platform joined up on identity, access, joiner/mover/leaver and certification
• Lead adoption of AI coding and operations tooling in DevOps within agreed guardrails and demonstrate measurable improvements
• Deliver the platform roadmap under the direction of the Head of Software and Cybersecurity
• Act as the technical escalation point for the platform

Requirements:

• Proven senior or lead DevOps engineer experience on AWS, including line-managing or leading others
• Strong Terraform and CI/CD experience, ideally CircleCI or GitHub Actions
• Production experience running Kubernetes (EKS) and serverless workloads
• Hands-on observability with OpenTelemetry and a modern stack, including SLOs and alert tuning
• Solid Postgres administration experience
• Experience operating data pipelines or a cloud data warehouse
• Daily hands-on use of AI coding assistants and agents, with a considered view on using them safely
• Good understanding of cloud security practice
• Willingness to participate in the on-call rota
• Excellent communication; comfortable prioritising, working with stakeholders and reporting upwards
• Desirable: ClickHouse, Redshift or Apache Iceberg; AWS Glue or Spark
• Desirable: delivering the technical side of Cyber Essentials Plus or ISO 27001
• Desirable: experience overseeing or working closely with an internal IT function
• Desirable: deeper networking including VPC design, PrivateLink and IPSec
• Desirable: Bash and Python
• Desirable: Node.js/TypeScript familiarity
• Hands-on, calm, methodical, data-driven, inquisitive and collaborative approach

Benefits:

• Free on-site EV charging
• Private Medical Insurance
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• 25 days’ holiday (increasing with service) plus Bank Holidays
• Mental Health First Aiders across the business
• Career development and ongoing support
• Employee empowerment and autonomy
• Free on-site parking
• A positive, purpose-driven working environment
• EV salary sacrifice scheme
• Birthday leave
• Life Assurance - death in service
• Long service awards
• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
• Life Celebrations - vouchers for birth and marriage
• Employee Assistance Programme - a free, 24/7 UK-based counselling helpline