Azure DevOps Platform Lead: Pipelines, Gates & Self-Service

Socium; Manchester; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Socium in Manchester is seeking an experienced Azure DevOps Platform Lead to own the platform and standardise delivery across engineering teams. You’ll design reusable YAML pipelines, branch policies and deployment guardrails to streamline software releases.

You will migrate Jira and Confluence into Azure DevOps, consolidating pipelines, boards, backlogs, and documentation, while mentoring engineers and driving platform health improvements.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience with Azure DevOps and YAML pipelines.
• Experience building reusable, template-based pipelines for multiple teams.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD, branching strategies and release management.
• Experience designing branch policies, PR gates and environment approval processes.
• Working knowledge of Azure Key Vault, Entra ID and managed identities.
• Experience managing service connections, secrets and secure deployment processes.
• Evidence of designing or significantly improving an Azure DevOps platform.
• Experience helping development teams move towards self-service deployments.

Responsibilities

• Own the Azure DevOps platform across engineering, building reusable YAML pipeline templates.
• Create consistent branching strategies, branch policies and PR controls.
• Introduce approval gates, security checks and deployment guardrails.
• Standardise CI/CD processes across dev, test and production.
• Manage service connections, managed identities and secrets securely.
• Integrate tools like Key Vault, Entra ID and SAST into delivery processes.
• Migrate Jira boards, backlogs and ticket history into Azure DevOps Boards.
• Move Confluence docs into Azure DevOps Wiki and maintain traceability.
• Mentor engineers and help teams adopt new standards.
• Own platform health and continuously improve deployment processes.

Skills

Azure DevOps

YAML pipelines

CI/CD

Branching strategies

PR gates

Environment approvals

Platform design

Self-service deployments

Key Vault

Entra ID

Managed identities

Service connections

Migration planning

Tools

Azure DevOps

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Socium in Manchester is seeking an experienced Azure DevOps Platform Lead to own the platform and standardise delivery across engineering teams. You’ll design reusable YAML pipelines, branch policies and deployment guardrails to streamline software releases.

You will migrate Jira and Confluence into Azure DevOps, consolidating pipelines, boards, backlogs, and documentation, while mentoring engineers and driving platform health improvements.