DevOps/Infrastructure Engineer

0400 FBD USA LLP; Manchester; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Freshfields seeks a senior Cloud DevOps Engineer to design, deploy and operate advanced AI and cloud-native solutions on Microsoft Azure. You will work across product, data and engineering teams to productionize AI workloads in a secure, scalable environment.

Key responsibilities include building AKS-based deployments, IaC with Terraform, and robust CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, with a focus on reliability, observability, and secure practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing and implementing cloud-native solutions on Azure.
• Hands-on Kubernetes (AKS), Docker, and containerized deployments.
• Expertise with Terraform IaC and CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps.
• Proficient Python development and shell scripting; familiarity with Go or C# a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and support secure, scalable AI and cloud solutions on Azure.
• Engineer AI application infrastructure including AKS, containers, and cloud services.
• Develop and manage Terraform-based infrastructure and secure environments.
• Build CI/CD pipelines for AI, data, and apps with Azure DevOps and YAML workflows.
• Implement automated testing, monitoring, and observability for reliability.
• Collaborate with product, data, and engineering teams to productionize AI solutions.
• Monitor platform health, troubleshoot incidents, and drive root cause analyses.

Skills

Kubernetes

Docker

Azure DevOps

Python

Shell scripting

Linux administration

Cloud security

CI/CD

Go or C#

Tools

AKS

Terraform

Git

YAML

PostgreSQL

Redis

Azure Service Bus

Azure Storage

Job description

At Freshfields, technology and innovation are embedded into how we work with our clients. We’re a global law firm with more than 5,500 people across 33 offices, and we are continuing to advance our innovation strategy including investment in key technology. Our partnerships with Anthropic and Google as well as the investment in Freshfields Lab and AI Academy are but a few examples. Join us to work on some of the most exciting challenges at the intersection of law, technology and business.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, deploy, and support secure, scalable and resilient AI and cloud-based solutions on Azure.
• Engineer and maintain AI application infrastructure, including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), containers, and cloud-native services.
• Develop and manage Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) to provision and maintain secure, reliable environments.
• Build, optimize, and maintain CI/CD pipelines for AI, data, and application deployment using Azure DevOps.
• Implement automated testing, monitoring, alerting, and observability capabilities to ensure platform reliability and performance.
• Automate operational processes, configuration management, and environment provisioning using modern DevOps practices and tools.
• Collaborate with product, data, and engineering teams to transition new AI solutions into production environments.
• Monitor platform health, troubleshoot incidents, and drive root cause resolution and continuous improvement.
• Ensure all solutions are documented, secure, supportable, and aligned with engineering standards and best practices.

Key Experience & Skills

• 5+ years of experience designing and implementing cloud-native solutions, preferably on Microsoft Azure.
• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes (AKS), Docker, and containerized application deployment.
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and related automation frameworks.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps and YAML-based workflows.
• Strong programming and scripting skills in Python, plus shell scripting (PowerShell or Bash); C# or Go a plus.
• Experience deploying and supporting AI, machine learning, API, and cloud application workloads in production environments.
• Experience operating LLM-based workloads in production, including multi-provider routing, capacity and quota management, rate limiting, streaming and asynchronous job patterns, retries and backpressure, cost attribution, and AI-specific tracing and observability.
• Strong understanding of Linux administration, networking, security, and cloud architecture principles.
• Experience with enterprise Azure security patterns, including private networking and private endpoints, Entra ID and managed identities, RBAC, and secrets management with Key Vault.
• Experience operating PostgreSQL, Redis, Azure Service Bus and Azure storage services in production.
• Proficiency with Git, automated testing frameworks, and modern software engineering practices.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience working in Agile engineering environments.
• Experience hosting and operating Django or comparable ASGI web applications, background workers, event-driven services and server-sent event or similar streaming workloads on Kubernetes.

Inclusion

Freshfields is an equal opportunities employer and all applications received by the firm will be considered by the firm on the basis of their merit alone and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified individuals regardless of background. All offers of employment will be conditional on the candidate having/securing the right to work in the UK and providing the firm with evidence of that right (as required by the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006) prior to employment commencing.

Freshfields is a Ban the Box employer. We ask applicants to disclose criminal convictions only when a conditional job offer is made. A conviction does not automatically lead to withdrawal of the offer: we make decisions on a case by case basis and take a number of factors into account (eg the role you are applying for and the circumstances of the offence). You would have the opportunity to discuss the matter with us before we make a decision.

Freshfields is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world’s leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions, and governments on ground-breaking and business critical mandates.

At Freshfields we seek to create a better future for our clients, our people and the communities in which we work.

Our global teams bring together individuals with different experiences, skills and strengths in a culture where we support all to belong, engage and excel.