Principal DevOps Engineer (Azure)

Digital Waffle; Nottingham; Remote; GBP 77,000 - 94,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Waffle is seeking a Principal DevOps Engineer (Azure) to lead hands-on cloud engineering in a remote-UK setting. You will shape infrastructure design, drive best practices, and collaborate with development, security and operations teams to deliver scalable, secure platforms.

You will own CI/CD pipelines, GitOps adoption, and Terraform module development, while mentoring others and advancing the platform roadmap and observability capabilities.

Qualifications

• Strong commercial experience with Microsoft Azure.
• Extensive Terraform and IaC experience.
• Solid Kubernetes/AKS production experience.
• Good understanding of Azure networking and cloud architecture.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Knowledge of GitOps, ArgoCD or similar toolchains.
• Strong Linux administration and troubleshooting skills.
• Proficiency with Python or Bash scripting.
• Experience contributing to architecture and standards.
• Comfortable communicating with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain scalable Azure infrastructure using Terraform and IaC.
• Develop and manage production Kubernetes/AKS environments and networking.
• Establish and improve GitOps and CI/CD practices with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps and ArgoCD.
• Create reusable Terraform modules and deployment templates.
• Design and maintain Azure networking, including VNets and firewalls.
• Implement cloud security across IAM, RBAC and pipelines.
• Develop Helm charts and standard deployment processes.
• Improve observability with monitoring, logging and tracing.
• Automate repetitive tasks with Python/Bash scripts.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to platform roadmaps.
• Enhance developer experience with tooling and self-service.

Skills

Azure

AKS

GitOps

Terraform

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Docker

ArgoCD

Python

Bash

Tools

Terraform

ArgoCD

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Helm

Docker

Job description

Role: Principal DevOps Engineer (Azure)

Location: Remote, UK

Salary: £85,000 + bonus

Key Skills:

• Azure (Azure Landing Zones)
• AKS
• GitOps (ArgoCD)
• Terraform

The Role:

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.

Desirable Experience

• Istio or Cilium
• Argo Rollouts
• KEDA or Karpenter
• Falco or Kyverno
• Go development
• Azure Front Door
• Azure Firewall
• Entra ID and PIM
• Observability platforms such as Grafana, Loki or OpenTelemetry
• Experience working within regulated or compliance-focused environments