DevOps Lead Engineer

Cognizant; Limerick; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a DevOps Lead Engineer to join a greenfield MES rollout at a biotech manufacturing site in Limerick, Ireland. The role requires driving the DevOps toolchain, modern CI/CD practices, and infrastructure-as-code across development, testing, and production environments.

The ideal candidate will lead deployments for MES platforms, preferably with Emerson Syncade, and ensure release governance, change control, and regulatory compliance.

Qualifications

• Lead or Senior DevOps on complex enterprise programmes.
• Hands-on SDLC and modern DevOps practices.
• CI/CD, IaC, automation, and scripting skills.
• Experience in release management and configuration management.
• Experience with MES platforms, ideally Emerson Syncade.
• Knowledge of GxP, CSV, and GAMP 5 is a plus.
• Containerisation using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong problem solving and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Build, implement, and refine CI/CD pipelines for deployments across dev, test, and production.
• Own the DevOps toolchain and environment lifecycle: source control, IaC, configuration management, release management, monitoring, and observability.
• Provision and manage secure, resilient infrastructure underpinning MES platforms with high availability.
• Manage MES platforms (Emerson Syncade) — deployments, configuration, patching, upgrades, and operations.
• Set development standards, branching strategy, code review, release governance, and change control for regulated manufacturing.
• Collaborate with software engineering, QA, MES vendors, system integrators, and stakeholders to deliver automated deployments and IaC.
• Build automated testing and quality gates into CI/CD with QA for shift-left testing.
• Stand up monitoring, logging, and alerting for platform health and performance.
• Ensure CSV, audit readiness, disaster recovery, and business continuity with documentation.
• Drive ongoing improvement across the delivery lifecycle and clear deployment bottlenecks.
• Serve as technical authority for infrastructure and deployment issues.

Skills

CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure as code

Automation

Scripting

DevOps leadership

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Emerson Syncade

Job description

Cognizant is a world leader in delivering digital transformation solutions to Life Sciences. Through our knowledge and expertise in Automation, MES & Digital, we deliver stable manufacturing systems that are optimized to improve operational efficiencies, whilst maintaining compliance.

Our specialist engineering teams have the aptitude to deliver and support Pharma 4.0 architectures and solutions covering all IT, OT and IoT applications, infrastructures and services.

Operating across 5 continents and with over 300.000 skilled employees, Cognizant partners with the leading Life Sciences companies globally to provide performance improvements, reduced costs and improve time to market. We are your single end to end partner for consultancy, design implementation, optimization and support for all applications in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Manufacturing stack.

Cognizant is seeking a DevOps Lead Engineer to join a greenfield MES rollout at a biotech manufacturing site in Limerick, Ireland.

We're looking for someone with a strong track record as a Lead or Senior DevOps Engineer, comfortable pushing configuration changes through dev, test, and live production environments, with solid grounding in version control for MES configuration, CI/CD pipeline design, and automated testing support.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, implement, and refine CI/CD pipelines for consistent, dependable deployments across dev, test, and production
• Take ownership of the DevOps toolchain and environment lifecycle: source control, infrastructure-as-code, configuration management, release management, monitoring, and observability
• Provision and manage secure, resilient, scalable infrastructure underpinning MES platforms, keeping availability and performance high
• Manage MES platforms (Emerson Syncade experience preferred) — deployments, configuration, patching, upgrades, and day-to-day operational support
• Set and enforce development standards, branching strategy, code review practice, release governance, and change control suited to a regulated manufacturing setting
• Work alongside software engineering, QA, MES vendors, system integrators, and business stakeholders to deliver automated deployments and infrastructure-as-code
• Build automated testing and quality gates into CI/CD pipelines with QA, pushing shift-left testing and stronger release quality
• Stand up monitoring, logging, and alerting to stay ahead of platform health and performance issues
• Underpin CSV, audit readiness, disaster recovery, and business continuity with compliant documentation and deployment records
• Drive ongoing improvement across the delivery lifecycle, clearing deployment bottlenecks and tracking progress via metrics
• Serve as technical authority and escalation point for complex infrastructure, deployment, and operational issues

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience as a DevOps Lead or Senior DevOps Engineer on complex enterprise programme
• Hands-on development background with a strong grasp of the SDLC and modern DevOps practice
• Solid CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automation, and scripting skills
• Experience managing enterprise application environments — release management, configuration management, infrastructure provisioning
• Strong background supporting MES platforms, ideally Emerson Syncade, across deployment, configuration, upgrades, and operational support
• Experience in regulated pharma/life sciences environments preferred, with working knowledge of GxP, CSV, and GAMP 5
• Familiarity with MES integrations into SAP, LIMS, and historian systems, plus containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Strong problem‑solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills