DevOps Engineer

Senior DevOps Engineer

Working Hours: Full-time

Job Type: Contract – Inside IR35

Contract Length: 12 months

Daily Rate: £625 Umbrella / £425 PAYE

Location: Hybrid – Leeds, Manchester, Blackpool, Newcastle, Sheffield or Birmingham (60% Office Attendance)

About the Role

Our client is looking for an experienced Senior DevOps Engineer to lead DevOps engineering practices, infrastructure automation and technical delivery within a large-scale digital environment.

You will take ownership of DevOps processes and contribute to the development of engineering strategies, ensuring systems and services are secure, reliable, scalable and fit for purpose.

Working closely with Engineering and Architecture Leads, you will provide technical leadership to a small team of DevOps Engineers, overseeing the development, deployment and maintenance of products and services.

This is a hands-on leadership role requiring strong expertise in Terraform, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitLab CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices, alongside the ability to mentor engineers, establish technical standards and drive continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of DevOps Engineers, providing technical guidance, coaching and support.
• Own and improve DevOps processes, engineering standards and automation strategies across products and services.
• Design, develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform.
• Build and optimise GitLab CI/CD pipelines, supporting automated builds, testing and deployments.
• Lead release and deployment management, including risk assessment, scheduling, integration testing and rollback planning.
• Develop reusable infrastructure templates, libraries and services to improve engineering consistency and efficiency.
• Collaborate with Engineering and Architecture Leads to ensure systems meet performance, stability, availability and quality requirements.
• Oversee complex engineering activities, breaking down requirements and user stories into manageable technical tasks.
• Provide technical advice to senior stakeholders and contribute to wider engineering strategy and decision-making.
• Promote DevOps best practices, knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across engineering teams.

Essential Experience & Technical Skills

• Extensive experience working as a Senior DevOps Engineer, including technical leadership or mentoring responsibilities.
• Strong hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Terraform.
• Proven expertise designing, developing and maintaining GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience establishing DevOps strategies, engineering standards and automation best practices.
• Strong understanding of release management, deployment processes, integration testing and rollback procedures.
• Experience designing and maintaining reusable infrastructure templates, libraries and automated services.
• Strong knowledge of software engineering principles, scripting, testing and infrastructure automation.
• Experience supporting complex systems with a focus on stability, availability, performance and quality.
• Ability to provide technical leadership, mentor engineers and communicate effectively with senior stakeholders.

Desirable Experience

• Experience deploying and managing infrastructure across AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Strong understanding of networking concepts and infrastructure connectivity.
• Relevant cloud computing qualifications or certifications.
• Previous experience working within UK Government or public sector environments.
• Experience contributing to engineering communities, technical governance and cross-team best practices.