Senior Operations Engineer

Amplience Ltd.; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company in North East England is seeking a Senior Operations Engineer to design and evolve cloud infrastructure. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in AWS and proven leadership in infrastructure projects. Responsibilities include optimizing cloud architecture, implementing security frameworks, and mentoring junior engineers. This role offers opportunities for career growth and an engaging workplace environment, accompanied by a comprehensive benefits package including pension contributions and holiday leave.

Benefits

Pension Scheme

Annual Leave (25 days paid holiday)

Enhanced Maternity Leave

Enhanced Paternity Leave

Sick Pay

Study Leave

Birthday Leave

Company-Wide Recharge Days

Holiday Buy Scheme

Cycle to Work Scheme

Tech Scheme

Season Ticket Loan

Charity/Volunteer Days

Payroll Giving

Eyecare

Employee Referral Bonus

Qualifications

• Proven ability to prioritize competing demands and deliver results.
• Demonstrated experience with serverless architectures and container orchestration platforms.
• Direct experience implementing compliance frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Design, architect, and optimize cloud infrastructure on AWS.
• Lead the implementation of security frameworks.
• Champion infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Contribute to change management processes.
• Lead incident response efforts.
• Partner with engineering and product teams on architecture decisions.

Skills

Extensive hands-on experience architecting and operating production AWS environments at scale

Deep understanding of AWS Well-Architected Framework

Expert-level knowledge of Linux systems administration

Strong networking expertise

Working knowledge of DNS, CDN, caching

Expertise with IaC tooling including AWS CDK, CloudFormation, Terraform

Advanced scripting skills in Bash, Python, or Go

Knowledge of modern observability tools

Understanding of security best practices

Experience building and optimizing CI/CD pipelines

Ability to participate in 24/7 support rotations

Job description

Senior Operations Engineer

Department: Operations

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: North East England

Description

As a Senior Operations Engineer, you'll be involved with the design and evolution of our cloud infrastructure while mentoring within the operations team. You'll drive architectural decisions, establish best practices, and work closely with leadership to scale our systems for growth. This role is ideal for someone with deep expertise in cloud platforms (especially AWS), proven leadership in infrastructure projects, and a track record of building reliable, secure systems at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, architect, and optimise cloud infrastructure on AWS, ensuring scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness.
• Lead the implementation of security frameworks, including advanced IAM architectures, compliance controls, threat modeling, and security automation.
• Champion infrastructure-as-code practices and drive adoption of automation across the organization using tools like AWS CDK, CloudFormation, and Terraform.
• Contribute to change management processes, establishing standards for planning, risk assessment, documentation, and rollback procedures.
• Lead incident response efforts, conduct thorough postmortems, and implement preventive measures to improve system reliability.
• Partner with engineering and product teams on strategic architecture decisions, capacity planning, and platform evolution.
• Establish and enforce standards for secrets management, credential lifecycle, and secure configuration management.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, conducting code reviews and sharing expertise across the team.
• Define and evolve internal documentation standards, runbooks, and knowledge-sharing practices.

What You'll Bring (Skills, Experience & Mindset)

Skills & Experience

• Extensive hands‑on experience architecting and operating production AWS environments at scale.
• Deep understanding of AWS Well‑Architected Framework and ability to apply it to complex system designs.
• Expert‑level knowledge of Linux systems administration and performance tuning (Fedora, RHEL, etc.).
• Strong networking expertise (DNS, VPCs, firewalls, ACLs, routing, load balancing, etc.).
• Working knowledge of DNS, CDN, caching, firewalls, load balancers, and WAFs to ensure secure and performant web delivery.
• Proven expertise with IaC tooling including AWS CDK, CloudFormation, and Terraform, including module/library design.
• Advanced scripting and automation capabilities in Bash, Python, or Go.
• Excellent knowledge of modern observability tools and a demonstrated ability to implement the SRE approach to reliability (SLOs/SLIs, error budgets, eliminating toil)
• Comprehensive understanding of security best practices, including zero‑trust architectures, compliance requirements, and security tooling.
• Demonstrated experience building and optimizing CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows.
• Ability to participate in 24/7 support rotations and respond to incidents effectively.
• Proven ability to prioritize competing demands, lead cross‑functional initiatives, and deliver results in fast‑paced environments.

Mindset & Approach

• Customer and team centric with strong stakeholder management skills.
• Comfortable working independently on assigned tasks while collaborating with wider teams.
• Passionate about continuous improvement with an automation‑first mindset, knowledge sharing, and developing team capabilities.
• Strategic thinker with excellent judgment in balancing short‑term needs with long‑term architectural goals.
• Effective communicator who can translate technical concepts for varied audiences.

Additional Skills

• Deep experience with serverless architectures and container orchestration platforms (ECS, EKS, Kubernetes).
• Proven track record with observability platforms like CloudWatch, Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, or similar.
• Experience establishing SRE practices, incident management processes, and reliability engineering culture.
• Direct experience implementing compliance frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC2, PCI‑DSS) or relevant security certifications.

Benefits

Pension Scheme

• Auto-enrolled after 3 months' service
• Salary sacrifice scheme to maximise tax efficiency
• 5% employee contribution, matched by 5% from Amplience
• Pension broker: Titan Group (offers financial advice)
• Pension provider: Aegon (moved from Aviva in 2024)

Annual Leave

25 days paid holiday as standard

Length of Service Entitlement

• UK Team Entitlement: 3+ years continuous service | 26 days annual leave entitlement
• 4+ years continuous service | 27 days annual leave entitlement
• 5+ years continuous service | 28 days annual leave entitlement
• 6+ years continuous service | 29 days annual leave entitlement
• 7+ years continuous service | 30 days annual leave entitlement

Enhanced Maternity Leave

• 12 weeks full pay
• 12 weeks at 50% pay
• 15 weeks at statutory maternity pay (SMP)
• 13 weeks unpaid

Enhanced Paternity Leave

• 2 weeks full pay

Sick Pay

• Up to one month’s full pay per calendar year (at company discretion, with medical certificate)

Study Leave

• 5 days for employees on accredited long‑term courses (12+ months)

Birthday Leave

• One paid day off during your birthday month

Company‑Wide Recharge Days

• One day off per quarter for the whole business – rest, recharge, and reset

All roles are laptop-enabled

Working arrangements agreed with your line manager

Freedom Fridays: Finish early on Fridays to support work‑life balance (full‑time employees only)

Holiday Buy Scheme

• Purchase up to 5 extra days per year, repaid through salary deductions

Cycle to Work Scheme

• Save on bikes & accessories via tax‑efficient payments (Blackhawk Network)

Tech Scheme

• Purchase tech items and spread the cost over 12 months via salary deduction (Blackhawk Network)

Season Ticket Loan

• Advance loans available for travel tickets, repaid via payroll

Charity/Volunteer Days

• Up to 3 paid days a year for volunteering or charity work

Payroll Giving (CAF – Give As You Earn)

• Tax‑free donations to UK charities, directly from your salary

Eyecare

• Reimbursement for a standard eye exam every two years

Employee Referral Bonus

• £1,000 / €1,139 / $1,337
• 50% paid at 4 months, 50% at 7 months post‑hire

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