Principal DevOps Engineer (Azure)

Digital Waffle; Nottingham; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Waffle is seeking a hands-on Senior DevOps/Platform Engineer to influence technical direction and raise engineering standards. You will design and manage Azure infra with Terraform, run production AKS clusters, and drive GitOps, CI/CD, and platform observability. Mentoring and architectural input are key parts of the role.

The ideal candidate works independently, communicates across teams, and contributes to platform security and scalable delivery.

Qualifications

• Strong Azure and cloud infra experience.
• Extensive Terraform and IaC background.
• Production Kubernetes environments, ideally AKS.
• CI/CD pipelines and GitOps expertise.
• Docker, Helm and containerised apps know-how.
• Scripting in Python or Bash for automation.
• Linux administration and troubleshooting ability.
• Security, IAM, RBAC and compliant practices.
• Ability to contribute to architecture and standards.
• Clear communication to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain scalable Azure infra with Terraform.
• Develop prod Kubernetes/AKS environments and upgrades.
• Advance GitOps and CI/CD with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, ArgoCD.
• Create reusable Terraform modules and deployment templates.
• Design Azure networking, VNets, hub-and-spoke, DNS, NSGs and firewalls.
• Apply cloud security practices across IAM and container security.
• Maintain Helm charts and standard deployment processes.
• Improve monitoring, logging and observability tooling.
• Automate repetitive tasks with Python or Bash scripts.
• Contribute to designs, roadmaps and platform standards.
• Mentor engineers and support platform evolution and security.

Skills

Azure

Kubernetes/AKS

GitOps

CI/CD

Docker

Python/Bash

Linux admin

Terraform

IaC

Security

Tools

Terraform

ArgoCD

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

AKS

Grafana/OpenTelemetry

Helm

OpenTelemetry

Istio or Cilium

KEDA or Karpenter

Entra ID / PIM

Job description

This is a hands-on senior engineering position with plenty of scope to influence technical direction, improve engineering standards and help shape the way cloud infrastructure is designed and delivered. You'll work closely with development, infrastructure and security teams, acting as a technical escalation point and helping drive best practice across the wider engineering function.

What You'll Be Doing

• Design, build and maintain scalable Azure infrastructure using Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.
• Develop and manage production Kubernetes/AKS environments, including upgrades, security, networking and optimisation.
• Establish and improve GitOps and CI/CD practices, using tools such as GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps and ArgoCD.
• Build reusable Terraform modules, deployment templates and automation to improve consistency across environments.
• Design and maintain Azure networking, including VNets, hub-and-spoke architectures, DNS, NSGs and firewall solutions.
• Implement cloud security practices across identity, access management, container security and infrastructure.
• Develop and maintain Helm charts and standardised deployment processes for application teams.
• Introduce and improve monitoring, logging, tracing and platform observability.
• Automate repetitive processes using Python, Bash or similar scripting languages.
• Contribute to technical designs, architecture decisions and platform roadmaps.
• Help improve developer experience through tooling, documentation and self-service capabilities.
• Act as a senior technical escalation point and provide mentoring and guidance to other engineers.
• Support the continued evolution of the platform, including container orchestration, autoscaling, progressive delivery and platform security.

What We're Looking For:

You'll be an experienced DevOps/Platform Engineer with a strong background in cloud infrastructure and automation. We're looking for someone who can operate independently, get hands-on with complex technical challenges and confidently contribute to architectural discussions.

Key experience:

• Strong commercial experience with Microsoft Azure.
• Extensive experience with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.
• Strong production experience with Kubernetes, ideally AKS.
• Good understanding of Azure networking and cloud architecture.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with GitOps, ideally using ArgoCD or a similar platform.
• Strong knowledge of Docker and containerised environments.
• Experience with Helm and Kubernetes application deployment.
• Good understanding of cloud security, IAM, RBAC and secure CI/CD practices.
• Strong Linux administration and troubleshooting skills.
• Proficiency with Python, Bash or similar scripting languages.
• Experience contributing to technical architecture, design documentation and engineering standards.
• Comfortable communicating technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience mentoring engineers or acting as a senior technical point of contact.
• Istio or Cilium
• KEDA or Karpenter
• Falco or Kyverno
• Entra ID and PIM
• Observability platforms such as Grafana, Loki or OpenTelemetry
• Experience working within regulated or compliance-focused environments