Senior DevOps Engineer

Inara; Greater London; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension contribution

Holiday entitlement

Enhanced maternity pay

Sick pay (4 weeks full pay)

Christmas shutdown

Job summary

Inara is seeking a senior DevOps/Platform engineer to own and evolve the cloud platform supporting a mission-driven data and research environment. You’ll work with Data and ML Engineers to design, build and secure scalable infrastructure using GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD, while embedding security and privacy by design.

This role offers meaningful impact, a competitive salary, and a fast-growing team within an NGO/Tech for Good setting in London.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a DevOps/Platform/Cloud Engineering role with senior experience.
• Strong hands-on experience with GCP; AWS or Azure also welcome.
• IaC with Terraform or OpenTofu.
• Kubernetes and containerisation in production.
• CI/CD design, ideally GitLab or Jenkins.
• Cloud networking knowledge (Shared VPC, Private Service Connect, hybrid).
• Security and compliance baked into cloud environments.
• Strong Linux background and scripting (Bash, Python).
• Motivated by technical challenge and social impact.

Responsibilities

• Own, maintain and improve the organisation's GCP infrastructure and cloud networking.
• Design and manage Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, including reusable templates and modules.
• Build and improve CI/CD pipelines so engineers can ship quickly and safely.
• Embed security and compliance best practice across the platform, including IAM, VPC Service Controls and private connectivity.
• Run and scale containerised workloads on Kubernetes, alongside some on-premises infrastructure.
• Partner with the Data and ML Engineers on the infrastructure behind their pipelines, BigQuery and secure data sharing.
• Contribute to the technology strategy of the organisation and drive documentation, standards and ways of working.

Skills

GCP expertise

Terraform

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Linux scripting

Security compliance

Cloud networking

Python

Bash

Tools

GitLab

Jenkins

Terraform

Job description

Industry:

NGO, Tech for Good

Salary:

£85,000 - £90,000 (potentially some wiggle room for the right person)

Confidentiality:

NDA required before client details can be shared

About the opportunity

This is a genuinely rare opportunity. We've already placed a number of people into this organisation this year and they're absolutely loving it, and it's easy to see why. This is a mission-driven, not-for-profit working on real-world intelligence and research challenges that have direct, tangible impact. The kind of role where you go home knowing what you built actually matters.

The team is growing fast. You'll be joining a small but high-calibre Data, Tools, and Technical Tradecraft function that operates like a miniature start-up within a serious analytical organisation. Engineers here are given real creative liberty. You'll be expected to own the platform, propose new approaches and help shape how the organisation builds, secures and scales its infrastructure.

The platform underpins large and varied datasets (textual, geospatial, structured and unstructured) powering a research team that is expanding rapidly. Given the sensitive nature of the work, security and private connectivity sit at the heart of everything. It's technically interesting, socially meaningful, and about as far from a maintenance job as you can get.

The role

You'll report directly into the Technical Tradecraft Lead and work closely with the Data Engineer and Machine Learning Engineer to design, build and run the cloud platform behind the organisation's Knowledge Base. You'll be the go-to person for infrastructure, CI/CD and cloud security.

This is a hands-on technical role. It's ideal for an experienced engineer who loves the tech and wants to stay close to it, rather than drifting into day-to-day people management.

Key responsibilities

• Own, maintain and improve the organisation's GCP infrastructure and cloud networking
• Design and manage Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, including reusable templates and modules
• Build and improve CI/CD pipelines so engineers can ship quickly and safely
• Embed security and compliance best practice across the platform, including IAM, VPC Service Controls and private connectivity
• Run and scale containerised workloads on Kubernetes, alongside some on-premises infrastructure
• Partner with the Data and ML Engineers on the infrastructure behind their pipelines, BigQuery and secure data sharing
• Contribute to the technology strategy of the organisation and drive documentation, standards and ways of working

What we're looking for:

• 5+ years in a DevOps, Platform or Cloud Engineering role, with solid time at senior level
• Strong hands-on experience with GCP (AWS or Azure also welcome)
• Infrastructure as Code with Terraform or OpenTofu
• Kubernetes and containerisation in production
• CI/CD pipeline design, ideally with GitLab or Jenkins
• Solid cloud networking knowledge, such as Shared VPC, Private Service Connect and hybrid connectivity
• Experience building security and compliance into cloud environments
• Strong Linux background and scripting skills (Bash, Python)
• Motivated by both technical challenge and real-world social impact

Nice to have

• Experience with BigQuery or supporting data platforms and DataOps
• Configuration management with Ansible
• Experience with Airflow or Prefect
• Start-up or scale-up experience, owning infrastructure end to end
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical initiatives
• Relevant certifications, such as Google Cloud Professional or RHCSA
• Experience working in or alongside blended analyst teams
• £85,000 - £90,000 per annum (potentially some wiggle room for the right person)
• 5% employee / 6% employer pension contribution
• 23 days holiday + 8 bank holidays + Christmas shutdown (outside of holiday allowance)
• Enhanced maternity pay and occupational sick pay (4 weeks full pay)

At Inara Talent, we believe everyone deserves a fair chance to shine. We connect great people from all backgrounds with opportunities where they can thrive, making sure hiring is fair, inclusive, and genuinely diverse. No matter your background, we focus on what matters: your talent.