Infrastructure Technical Lead

NP Group; Greater London; Remote; GBP 92,000 - 101,000; Full time

Job summary

NP Group is seeking an Infrastructure Technical Lead for a 15-month contract. Location: UK/Poland remote with Swedish time zone.

The role emphasizes self-managed, bare-metal infrastructure rather than public cloud, with encryption, key management and certificate lifecycle responsibilities. You will lead technical direction while remaining hands-on, manage Ubuntu Linux servers, routing, DNS, firewalls and VPNs, and work with hosting providers.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated 8–10+ years of platform engineering with hands-on coding.
• Experience managing Ubuntu Linux servers in production.
• Deep understanding of routing, DNS, firewalls, VPNs, and security implications.
• Ability to plan changes without production disruption and lead technically.
• Experience with Ansible and configuration management.

Responsibilities

• Manage Ubuntu Linux servers in production with systemd and logs.
• Operate infrastructure with dedicated hosting or colocation data centers.
• Configure and debug routing, DNS, firewalls and VPNs.
• Diagnose hardware failures and work with physical servers.
• Assess security implications and manage secrets and encryption.
• Lead technical direction while remaining hands-on.

Skills

8-10+ years exp

Linux systems

Networking

Security engineering

Hands-on leadership

Ubuntu Linux

Go programming

Ansible

Terraform

Kubernetes

VPNs & firewalls

Root cause analysis

Tools

Ansible

Terraform

Kubernetes

ZFS

WireGuard

KVM/QEMU

VictoriaMetrics

Grafana

ELK

CoreDNS

Cloudflare

Podman

Go

Job description

Position: Infrastructure Technical Lead

Start Date: ASAP

Duration: 15 -Month Contract (extendable)

Location: UK/Poland - Remote, Swedish time zone

Rate: £500 - £550 per day inside of IR35

Reference: 20877

We are seeking an infrastructure engineer with strong Linux, networking and infrastructure security backgrounds, able to lead technical direction while remaining an individual contributor.

This role is centred on self-managed, dedicated and bare-metal infrastructure rather than public cloud, with security responsibilities layered across encryption, key management and certificate lifecycle management.

Tasks:

• Manage Ubuntu Linux servers in production, including systemd, logs, package management, processes and filesystems.
• Operate infrastructure with dedicated hosting providers such as Hetzner or OVH, or in colocation data centers such as Digital Realty/Interxion or Cyberlynk.
• Configure and debug routing, DNS, firewalls and VPNs.
• Work with physical servers, including diagnosing hardware failures.
• Assess the security implications of infrastructure changes, including patching vulnerabilities, enforcing access control and handling secrets.
• Troubleshoot issues with a focus on identifying root cause rather than symptoms.
• Plan infrastructure changes with an understanding of system interdependencies, avoiding disruption to production.
• Use scripting and configuration management tools such as Ansible.
• Use metrics, dashboards, alerts and logs to monitor and understand systems.
• Translate compliance requirements into practical infrastructure changes.
• Work closely with developers, raising questions early.
• Lead technical direction for the team while remaining hands-on.

Skills & Attributes:

• 8 to 10+ years of experience, with deep platform engineering expertise and a hands‑on coding background.
• Able to lead technical direction while remaining an individual contributor.
• Hands‑on experience managing Ubuntu Linux servers in production, including systemd, logs, package management, processes and filesystems.
• Experience operating infrastructure with dedicated hosting providers such as Hetzner or OVH, or in colocation data centers such as Digital Realty/Interxion or Cyberlynk.
• Strong understanding of routing, DNS, firewalls and VPNs, and how to debug them.
• Experience with physical servers, including diagnosing hardware failures.
• Understanding of the security implications of infrastructure changes, including patching vulnerabilities, enforcing access control and handling secrets.
• Strong troubleshooting skills, with a focus on identifying root cause rather than symptoms.
• Understanding of how systems depend on one another, and the ability to plan changes without disrupting production.
• Experience with scripting and configuration management tools such as Ansible.
• Experience using metrics, dashboards, alerts and logs to monitor and understand systems.
• Experience translating compliance requirements into practical infrastructure changes.
• Ability to work closely with developers and raise questions early.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience running a fleet of servers (hundreds of hosts).
• Experience with ZFS.
• Experience with WireGuard networks.
• Experience with KVM/QEMU virtualization.
• Experience with VictoriaMetrics, Grafana and ELK.
• Ability to read Go code.
• Experience with rootless containers such as Podman.
• Experience with CoreDNS and Cloudflare.
• Experience with Terraform and Kubernetes.
• Experience implementing encryption at rest and encryption in transit.
• Experience automating certificate renewal and rotation as part of certificate lifecycle management (CLM), including issuance and revocation.
• Experience with PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).
• Experience implementing security controls and applying security best practices to infrastructure.
• Experience with enterprise certificate lifecycle management (CLM) platforms.
• Experience with self-hosted key management tools, including key rotation.
• Experience with secrets management tools, such as SOPS, OpenBao/Vault or AWS Secrets Manager.
• Experience implementing encryption at rest on Linux hosts, including disk and filesystem encryption.
• Experience automating certificate renewal for services running on Linux hosts.
• Experience with security frameworks or audits, such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2.
  

Networking People (UK) is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.