Principal DevOps Engineer (AI)

Sanderson Government & Defence; City Of London; Remote; GBP 120,000 - 157,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson Government & Defence is seeking a Principal DevOps Engineer to lead the development of an enterprise-scale AI platform. The role focuses on cloud foundations, automation, governance and secure delivery of AI products at scale.

You will design, build and operate AI landing zones across Azure and AWS, delivering self-service capabilities, robust CI/CD pipelines and strong security controls within a rapidly evolving public sector environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive Platform Engineering, DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure experience.
• Experience building and operating AI platforms within Azure and AWS.
• Experience with Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock and related AI ecosystem services.
• Strong MLOps, DevOps and CI/CD expertise.
• IaC experience using Terraform, Bicep and/or CloudFormation.
• Containerisation and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes.
• API management, integration architectures and event-driven systems.
• Monitoring, observability and operational support tooling.
• Cloud security, identity management, governance and compliance controls.
• Experience supporting AI agents, RAG architectures, model integrations and orchestration frameworks.
• FinOps and cloud cost optimisation experience.
• Strong automation and scripting capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and optimise enterprise AI platform capabilities across Azure and AWS environments.
• Develop AI landing zones, engineering environments and experimentation platforms.
• Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation and self-service platform capabilities.
• Build and maintain CI/CD and MLOps pipelines supporting AI solution delivery.
• Enable secure integration of AI services, APIs, agents, foundation models and orchestration frameworks.
• Develop observability, monitoring, logging and operational support capabilities.
• Establish platform governance, security controls and operational guardrails.
• Support deployment, scaling and management of AI-powered products and services.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and platform tooling.
• Drive optimisation of platform performance, resilience and cloud costs.
• Create reusable services, templates, accelerators and reference architectures.
• Provide technical leadership across engineering, data and AI teams.
• Ensure alignment with architecture, security and governance standards.

Skills

Platform engineering

DevOps

Cloud infrastructure

MLOps

CI/CD

Automation

Scripting

Tools

Terraform

Bicep

CloudFormation

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure

Job description

Principal DevOps Engineer (AI Platform)

£751/day Umbrella | Fully Remote | SC Cleared | Contract to March 2027

We're supporting a major public sector programme seeking an experienced Principal DevOps Engineer to lead the development of enterprise-scale AI platform capabilities.

This is a senior technical leadership role focused on building the cloud, automation, governance and platform foundations that enable the secure delivery of AI products, services and solutions at scale. You'll work at the forefront of AI platform engineering, helping shape the infrastructure and tooling that supports next-generation AI adoption across a large, complex organisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build and optimise enterprise AI platform capabilities across Azure and AWS environments
• Develop AI landing zones, engineering environments and experimentation platforms
• Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation and self-service platform capabilities
• Build and maintain CI/CD and MLOps pipelines supporting AI solution delivery
• Enable secure integration of AI services, APIs, agents, foundation models and orchestration frameworks
• Develop observability, monitoring, logging and operational support capabilities
• Establish platform governance, security controls and operational guardrails
• Support deployment, scaling and management of AI-powered products and services
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and platform tooling
• Drive optimisation of platform performance, resilience and cloud costs
• Create reusable services, templates, accelerators and reference architectures
• Provide technical leadership across engineering, data and AI teams
• Ensure alignment with architecture, security and governance standards

Essential Experience

• Extensive Platform Engineering, DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure experience
• Proven background building and operating AI platforms within Azure and AWS
• Experience with Azure AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock and related AI ecosystem services
• Strong MLOps, DevOps and CI/CD expertise
• Infrastructure as Code experience using Terraform, Bicep and/or CloudFormation
• Containerisation and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes
• API management, integration architectures and event-driven systems
• Monitoring, observability and operational support tooling
• Cloud security, identity management, governance and compliance controls
• Experience supporting AI agents, RAG architectures, model integrations and orchestration frameworks
• FinOps and cloud cost optimisation experience
• Strong automation and scripting capabilities

Ideal Profile

• Passion for emerging AI technologies
• Strategic mindset with strong technical leadership capability
• Able to balance innovation, security, risk and cost considerations
• Strong focus on automation and engineering excellence
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills
• Comfortable working within evolving and ambiguous environments
• Collaborative, delivery-focused and proactive approach

Reasonable Adjustments:

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.