Lead DevOps Engineer SC Cleared or SC Eligible

Avance Consulting; Leeds; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Lead DevOps Engineer to spearhead cloud transformation initiatives. In this pivotal role, you will lead high-performance DevOps teams to design and implement secure, scalable cloud solutions. Your expertise in CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and cloud security will be crucial in optimizing mission-critical applications. Collaborate with diverse stakeholders to align DevOps strategies with digital transformation goals and FinOps best practices. This opportunity offers access to cutting-edge technologies, ensuring you remain at the forefront of innovation while driving cost efficiencies and enhancing security protocols.

Qualifications

• Deep understanding of AWS security and compliance services.
• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and managing DevOps tools.

Responsibilities

• Implement and manage scalable applications on AWS Cloud.
• Enforce AWS security best practices and manage DevOps tools.

Skills

AWS Security & Compliance Expertise

Threat Detection & Compliance

Collaborate with Solution Architects

Lead DevOps Team & Define Best Practices

Serverless Security & Architecture

Networking & Cloud Security

Container Security & Orchestration

Infrastructure Automation & Security

Monitoring, Logging & Alerting

CI/CD Security & Automation

Cloud-Based Database Security

Cost Optimization & FinOps

Problem-solving & Leadership

Education

AWS Certifications

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Ansible

Puppet

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

AWS CloudFormation

AWS Cost Explorer

Job description

As a Lead DevOps Engineer, you will drive cloud transformation, leading multiple high-performance DevOps teams to build secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud solutions.

Your expertise in CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), cloud security, and automation will shape mission-critical applications across various units and projects.

Collaborating with business stakeholders, solution architects, and security teams, you will align DevOps strategies with growth, digital transformation, and FinOps best practices for optimized cloud spending.

You will establish governance frameworks to enhance security, compliance, and incident response.

This role provides access to cutting-edge cloud technologies, including AWS serverless computing, Kubernetes orchestration, AI-driven observability, and security automation, keeping you at the forefront of innovation.

Your responsibilities:

1. Implement and manage highly available, scalable, and secure applications hosted on AWS Cloud, leveraging multi-region deployment strategies.
2. Enforce AWS security best practices to safeguard data, applications, and systems, including IAM policy design, access management, encryption standards, and compliance audits.
3. Design, implement, and manage various DevOps tools and technologies, including CI/CD platforms (Jenkins, GitLab CI), configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet), and containerization technologies (Docker, ECS, Kubernetes).
4. Monitor system performance, identify bottlenecks, and implement optimizations to improve reliability and efficiency.
5. Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Ansible, AWS CloudFormation, ensuring consistency, repeatability, and compliance.
6. Identify and automate application deployment, scaling, and security processes, reducing manual effort and improving reliability.
7. Work with cross-functional teams, ensuring seamless collaboration between DevOps, development, security, and operations teams.
8. Troubleshoot complex system issues, analyze logs and performance metrics, and provide actionable recommendations.
9. Document and refine DevOps practices, maintaining version control, release management workflows, and configuration documentation.

Essential skills/knowledge/experience:

1. AWS Security & Compliance Expertise: Deep understanding of AWS Security, Identity, and Compliance services, including IAM, AWS Organizations, SCPs, Secrets Manager, AWS Config, GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudTrail, and AWS KMS for encryption, ensuring robust cloud security.
2. Threat Detection & Compliance: Implementation of AWS security tools like Amazon Detective, AWS Shield, WAF, AWS Firewall Manager, enforcing security compliance standards such as ISO 27001, SOC2, GDPR, and NIST frameworks.
3. Collaborate with Solution Architects: Work closely with solution architects to design scalable, secure, and cost-efficient cloud systems/applications, ensuring DevOps methodologies align with business objectives.
4. Lead DevOps Team & Define Best Practices: Take ownership of designing and implementing DevOps frameworks, optimizing CI/CD pipelines, IaC standards, security policies, and guiding DevOps engineers in modern cloud strategies.
5. Serverless Security & Architecture: Design and implement secure AWS Serverless solutions using ECS Fargate, Lambda, SNS, SQS, API Gateway, enforcing IAM execution roles, API authentication, encrypted messaging, and network isolation strategies.
6. Networking & Cloud Security: Deep expertise in TCP/IP, DNS, Load Balancers, network firewalls, SSL/TLS/mTLS, along with AWS Shield for DDoS protection, AWS WAF for web security, VPC segmentation, and automated vulnerability scanning.
7. Container Security & Orchestration: Expertise in Docker, ECS, EKS, Kubernetes, implementing security best practices like image vulnerability scanning, Kubernetes RBAC, IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA), Pod Security Policies, and automated compliance enforcement.
8. Infrastructure Automation & Security: Strong experience in IaC tools (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible), applying least privilege IAM policies, role-based access controls (RBAC), automated compliance checks, and zero-trust security principles.
9. Monitoring, Logging & Alerting: Expertise in building centralized logging solutions, integrating ELK Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, and AWS-native security monitoring tools such as CloudWatch, Security Hub, SIEM integrations.
10. CI/CD Security & Automation: Proficient in Jenkins, Git, GitHub Actions, ensuring secure CI/CD pipelines with artifact encryption, automated security scanning, and DevSecOps best practices.
11. Cloud-Based Database Security: Experience managing Amazon RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, enforcing database encryption (KMS), automated backups, fine-grained access controls, and data integrity monitoring.
12. Cost Optimization & FinOps: Drive cloud cost optimization strategies using AWS Cost Explorer, Compute Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, AutoScaling efficiencies, and rightsizing workloads to maximize cost savings.
13. Problem-solving & Leadership: Strong ability to troubleshoot security vulnerabilities, enforce DevSecOps methodologies, and lead teams to adopt best practices in AWS cloud optimization and governance.
14. Additional Requirements: Associate is expected to either be SC Cleared or eligible for SC Clearance - Must have worked continuously in the UK for 5 years.
15. AWS Certifications: AWS Certified Security Specialty, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, AWS DevOps Professional.
16. Additional Skills: Container orchestration and security knowledge, CI/CD & security automation, cloud cost optimization & FinOps, AWS-native security services (Macie, Inspector, GuardDuty), programming & scripting (Python, Shell), AWS database and networking expertise.