Staff DevOps - Engineer

We are seeking an experienced and highly skilled Senior Staff Engineer - DevOps to lead the design, implementation, and optimisation of cloud-native platforms, infrastructure automation, and DevOps practices across a multi-cloud ecosystem. This role requires deep expertise in Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), container orchestration, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and real-time data streaming technologies. The ideal candidate will serve as a technical leader, driving platform engineering excellence, reliability, security, scalability, and automation while mentoring engineering teams and influencing strategic technology decisions.

The candidate will have responsibilities across the following functions:

Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Architecture:

• Design, implement, and manage highly available, scalable, and cost-optimised cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Lead deployment, administration, and lifecycle management of containerised applications using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
• Architect and implement advanced Kubernetes capabilities including: Horizontal and Vertical Pod Autoscaling, Ingress Controllers, Service Mesh (Istio), Network and Security Policies
• Establish cloud architecture standards, governance, security controls, and best practices for enterprise-scale environments.

CI/CD and DevSecOps:

• Architect and maintain enterprise-grade CI/CD pipelines utilising GitHub Actions for automated, secure, and reliable software delivery.
• Integrate security, compliance, and quality controls throughout the software development lifecycle following DevSecOps principles.
• Drive adoption of GitOps methodologies and Policy-as-Code for infrastructure governance and deployment consistency.
• Collaborate with development, security, and operations teams to improve release quality and deployment velocity.

Streaming and Messaging Systems:

• Design, deploy, and manage Apache Kafka and Confluent Kafka platforms supporting mission-critical real-time streaming workloads.
• Implement scalable event-driven architectures using Google Cloud Pub/Sub.
• Optimise streaming infrastructure for performance, fault tolerance, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Ensure high availability and security for enterprise messaging ecosystems.

Observability and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE):

• Define and implement enterprise-wide observability frameworks using: Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, GCP Operations Suite.
• Establish and maintain Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and Service Level Indicators (SLIs).
• Lead production incident management, root cause analysis, post-incident reviews, and resilience improvement initiatives.
• Promote reliability engineering best practices through automation and proactive monitoring strategies.

Infrastructure Automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC):

Champion Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) adoption using:

• Terraform
• Bicep
• ARM Templates
• Automate cloud provisioning, configuration management, and operational workflows.

Develop tooling and automation frameworks using:

• Python
• Bash
• PowerShell
• Cloud Functions
• Enforce infrastructure governance, version control, and repeatability across environments.

Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical direction and architectural guidance for cloud and DevOps initiatives.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering excellence across teams.
• Drive continuous improvement in platform reliability, security, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with architects, developers, security teams, and business stakeholders to align technology solutions with organisational goals.

Requirements:

• 9+ years of experience in DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Cloud Infrastructure, or Platform Engineering roles.
• Minimum 3+ years in a senior technical leadership capacity.
• Strong track record of delivering cloud-native platforms and enterprise-scale automation solutions.

Technical Expertise:

Deep hands-on experience in:

• Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform architecture and services.
• AKS and GKE administration and optimisation.
• Kubernetes platform engineering and container orchestration.
• Apache Kafka, Confluent Kafka, and Cloud Pub/Sub.
• CI/CD pipeline development using GitHub Actions.
• Observability platforms including Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, and GCP Monitoring.
• Scripting and automation using Python, Bash, and PowerShell.
• Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform, Bicep, and ARM Templates.
• NoSQL databases and distributed systems.

Core Experience:

• Enterprise system architecture and design.
• Production operations and incident management.
• Cloud security and compliance implementation.
• Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.
• Performance tuning, scalability, and optimisation.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience operating in multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Familiarity with chaos engineering principles and resilience testing.
• Knowledge of disaster recovery, business continuity, and cloud cost optimisation.

Cloud certifications such as:

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
• Azure DevOps Engineer Expert.
• Google Professional Cloud Architect.
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).
• Terraform Associate.

Core Competencies:

• Strategic and systems-thinking mindset.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Inclusive, collaborative, and empathetic leadership style.
• High integrity and ownership mentality.
• Innovation-driven with a focus on technical excellence.
• Strong mentoring and coaching capabilities.
• Customer-centric approach to technology delivery.
• Commitment to continuous learning and professional development.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.