Senior DevOps Engineer

Selby Jennings; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Selby Jennings is seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to join a high-impact platform engineering team in a fast-growing trading environment. You will own and evolve a large-scale Kubernetes platform, drive observability initiatives, and build automation that directly improves trading performance and developer productivity.

The role requires strong software engineering capabilities and deep infrastructure expertise, with a focus on automation, platform development, and collaboration with trading

Qualifications

• 5+ years of DevOps/Platform/SRE experience in complex production environments.
• Hands-on Kubernetes at scale including cluster management, networking, and security.
• Strong Linux knowledge across networking, storage, performance, and troubleshooting.
• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and large-scale observability.
• Proficient in CI/CD and GitOps using ArgoCD, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions.
• Infrastructure as Code experience with Terraform and Ansible.
• Programming in Python or Go for automation and platform development.
• Experience with on-premises or bare-metal infrastructure.
• Excellent communication with developers and stakeholders; trading/finance background advantageous.
• Familiarity with Kafka, Airflow, Kubeflow, service mesh, or AI-assisted tooling is beneficial.
• Ownership-driven mindset; ability to shape platform direction.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve a large-scale Kubernetes platform across trading and engineering workloads.
• Manage cluster lifecycle, upgrades, networking, storage, autoscaling, and DR.
• Scale and enhance observability platform for visibility and reliability.
• Build and maintain CI/CD and GitOps workflows to speed delivery.
• Create automation and self-service tools to reduce friction.
• Collaborate with trading desks and engineers to onboard workloads.
• Troubleshoot production issues across Kubernetes, Linux, networking, and distributed systems.
• Contribute to platform strategy, architecture, and best practices.
• Deliver innovative solutions in workflow orchestration, tooling, and automation.

Skills

Kubernetes

Linux

Observability

CI/CD

GitOps

Terraform

Ansible

Python/Go

On-Prem Infrastructure

Tools

ArgoCD

GitLab CI

GitHub Actions

Job description

Our client is an exceptional proprietary trading firm seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to join a high-impact platform engineering team at the heart of a rapidly growing global trading business. Renowned for its technology-first culture, entrepreneurial environment, and continued investment in infrastructure, the firm is scaling its next-generation platform that underpins mission-critical trading systems. This is an outstanding opportunity for a Senior DevOps Engineer to work on large-scale Kubernetes infrastructure, advanced observability, automation, and platform engineering challenges within a high-performance trading environment.

They are looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer who thrives on ownership, enjoys solving complex engineering problems, and wants to build platforms that directly impact trading performance and developer productivity. The ideal DevOps Engineer will combine strong software engineering capability with deep infrastructure expertise, bringing a proactive, can-do mindset and a passion for automation. This role would suit a DevOps Engineer who wants to move beyond operational support and play a key role in shaping the future of a modern, business-critical platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and evolve a large-scale Kubernetes platform supporting critical trading and engineering workloads across the firm.
• Drive cluster lifecycle management, upgrades, networking, storage, autoscaling, and disaster recovery initiatives.
• Scale and enhance a firm-wide observability platform, improving visibility, reliability, and operational performance.
• Build, optimise, and maintain CI/CD and GitOps workflows to accelerate software delivery.
• Develop automation and self-service tooling that empowers engineering teams and reduces operational friction.
• Partner directly with trading desks and software engineers to onboard new workloads and improve platform adoption.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues across Kubernetes, Linux, networking, and distributed systems environments.
• Contribute to platform strategy, architecture decisions, documentation, and engineering best practices.
• Deliver innovative solutions across areas such as workflow orchestration, AI-enabled tooling, and infrastructure automation.

Key Skills & Experience

• 5+ years of experience as a DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer, or Site Reliability Engineer within complex production environments.
• Strong hands-on experience operating Kubernetes at scale, including cluster management, troubleshooting, networking, and security.
• Deep Linux systems knowledge covering networking, storage, system performance, and operational troubleshooting.
• Experience with observability technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and large-scale metrics, logging, and tracing platforms.
• Strong experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and GitOps environments using tools such as ArgoCD, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or similar.
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent technologies.
• Strong programming skills in Python or Go, with a focus on automation and platform development.
• Experience supporting on-premise or bare-metal infrastructure environments.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work closely with developers, platform users, and business stakeholders.
• Experience within trading, financial markets, hedge funds, or other performance-sensitive environments would be highly advantageous.
• Exposure to Kafka, Airflow, Kubeflow, advanced Kubernetes networking, service mesh technologies, or AI-assisted operational tooling is beneficial.
• A collaborative, ownership-driven mindset with a desire to build scalable platforms and influence technical direction.

This is a unique opportunity to join a highly regarded trading firm where engineering excellence is a genuine competitive advantage. You'll work on greenfield initiatives, own critical infrastructure from end to end, and help shape a platform used across the business, all while operating in a fast-paced environment where your work has immediate and measurable impact.