Lead Platform Operations Engineer

Cognizant; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant in Sydney, Australia, is seeking a Lead Platform Operations Engineer to own reliability, health and automation of testing tools and AI services. You will collaborate across engineering, cloud, security and architecture teams to ensure secure, compliant, high-availability platforms.

You will drive modernization, review CI/CD pipelines and lead infrastructure automation using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Bamboo, Chef, Ansible and Terraform.

Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of CI/CD practices and DevOps operating models.
• Hands-on experience with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps or Bamboo.
• Desirable experience with Chef, Ansible or Terraform.
• Scripting and automation capability (Python, Shell, or Java).
• Knowledge of OpenShift/Kubernetes, containers and microservices.
• Experience in incident, problem, change and release management.
• Familiarity with Jira, ServiceNow and Confluence.

Responsibilities

• Own platform availability, reliability, performance and health against SLAs.
• Lead incidents, root cause analysis and permanent fixes.
• Manage backlogs, Jira boards, ServiceNow queues and priorities.
• Drive modernization, automation and CI/CD optimization.
• Develop automation scripts and tooling (Python/Shell/PowerShell).
• Oversee upgrades, patching and environment lifecycle with compliance.
• Monitor health with observability dashboards and alerts.
• Provide executive-ready reporting on availability, incidents and risks.
• Coach Run Engineers and support cloud transformation initiatives.

Skills

CI/CD practices

DevOps

Scripting

OpenShift/Kubernetes

Incident management

Jira/ServiceNow/Confluence

Tools

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Bamboo

Chef

Ansible

Terraform

Job description

About the role

As a Lead Platform Operations Engineer, you will make an impact by owning the operational health, reliability and continuous improvement of enterprise Testing Tools, Quality Engineering Platforms (QEP) and AI services. You will be a valued member of the team and work collaboratively with engineering, cloud, infrastructure, network, security and architecture teams to keep services reliable, secure, compliant and aligned with business objectives.

In this role, you will:

• Own platform availability, reliability, performance and operational health, ensuring agreed SLAs and service commitments are achieved.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for critical and major incidents, and lead incident, problem and root cause analysis activities through to permanent fixes and preventative measures.
• Manage operational backlogs, Jira boards, ServiceNow queues and support priorities across multiple teams, and establish operational governance, support processes, runbooks and service standards.
• Drive platform modernization, automation and DevOps adoption, including reviewing and optimising CI/CD pipelines and leading infrastructure automation using tools such as Chef, Ansible, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, Bamboo and OpenShift Pipelines.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts and operational tooling using Python, Shell, PowerShell and API-based integrations.
• Manage platform upgrades, infrastructure changes, patching and environment lifecycle, while ensuring compliance with enterprise security, risk, audit and governance requirements.
• Monitor platform health through observability dashboards, logging and proactive alerting, and identify recurring issues to automate manual operational tasks.
• Lead vendor engagement, support escalations and contract reviews, and provide executive-ready reporting on availability, incidents, risks, capacity and service improvements.
• Coach and mentor Run Engineers, and support strategic initiatives including migrations, upgrades and cloud transformation.

Work model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position based in Sydney, NSW. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

What you need to have to be considered

• Strong knowledge of CI/CD practices and DevOps operating models, with working experience in at least one tool such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps or Bamboo
• Desirable to have hands-on experience with Chef, Ansible or Terraform
• Scripting and automation capability in any language (for example Python, Java or shell)
• Knowledge of OpenShift/Kubernetes, containers and microservices, and infrastructure monitoring and observability platforms
• Strong experience in incident, problem, change and release management
• Working knowledge of Jira, ServiceNow and Confluence

We’re excited to meet people who share our mission and can make an impact in a variety of ways. Don’t hesitate to apply, even if you only meet the minimum requirements listed. Think about your transferable experiences and unique skills that make you stand out as someone who can bring new and exciting things to this role.