Lead DevSecOps Engineer

ATS Client; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 1,100,000 - 1,900,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

30 days annual leave + 3 mental health

Medical aid contribution up to R2,000

Apple MacBook and necessary equipment

Flexible hybrid working

Paid parking when in office

Great team and culture

Job summary

ATS Client in Cape Town is seeking an experienced Lead DevSecOps Engineer to own the security architecture and drive a proactive security culture across the business.

This hands-on role is ~80% technical architecture and 20% team leadership, with mentorship support for growth in people management. You will shape the security posture across cloud environments and CI/CD pipelines while remaining pragmatic and delivery-focused.

Qualifications

• 10+ years hands-on DevSecOps, cloud security or systems engineering experience.
• Deep expertise in AWS and Heroku with strong IaC experience.
• Proficient in AWS networking (VPCs, EC2, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers, CloudFront, ECS).
• Experience with security tooling (Sumo Logic, CrowdStrike, Snyk, Dependabot, AWS WAF or Cloudflare).
• Startup mindset with ability to operate across the stack in ambiguity.
• Familiarity with Angular/React and Ruby on Rails is a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Transform the SIEM platform into a Security Nerve Centre with detection dashboards.
• Build automated threat response systems triggered by unusual payloads or IOCs.
• Implement standardized rate-limiting and lead Chaos Engineering for DDoS/load scenarios.
• Shift security left by integrating vulnerability/IDS into CI/CD using Policy-as-Code.
• Mentor junior SecOps team members toward proactive security practices.

Skills

Hands-on DevSecOps

Cloud security

Team leadership

Security strategy

Ambiguity handling

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

AWS

Heroku

IaC (Infrastructure as Code)

Sumo Logic

CrowdStrike

Snyk

Dependabot

AWS WAF

Cloudflare

Job description

About the job Lead DevSecOps Engineer

Lead DevSecOps Engineer

Location: Cape Town (Hybrid)

Our client is a well-established and fast-growing fintech company operating in the payments space. With a lean, high-performing team of just over 50 people, they punch well above their weight, combining the agility of a startup with the rigour of a regulated financial services environment. They are looking for a hands‑on Lead DevSecOps Engineer to own their security infrastructure and drive a proactive security culture across the business.

The Role

This is a builder's role, not a vendor management position. You will serve as the primary security architect, unifying a defence‑in‑depth strategy and moving the organisation away from reactive compliance toward genuine system resilience. The split is approximately 80% deep technical architecture and 20% team leadership, with dedicated mentorship support for your growth in people management.

Key Responsibilities

• Transform the SIEM platform into a true Security Nerve Centre, moving beyond log ingestion into Detection Engineering, with intelligent dashboards that baseline normal API behaviour
• Build automated threat response systems that trigger on unusual payloads or IOCs, rather than relying on manual next‑day alerts
• Implement a standardised rate‑limiting strategy across all endpoints and lead Chaos Engineering exercises to simulate DDoS and heavy load scenarios
• Shift security left by integrating vulnerability and intrusion detection insights directly into CI/CD pipelines using Policy‑as‑Code Security Gates, if a vulnerable configuration or dependency is introduced, the build fails automatically
• Mentor junior SecOps team members, evolving them beyond manual PCI audits toward proactive, technically deep security practice

What You Bring

• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• 10+ years of hands‑on experience in DevSecOps, Cloud Security, or Systems Engineering
• Deep expertise in AWS and Heroku, with strong IaC experience
• Solid knowledge of AWS networking and compute: VPCs, EC2, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers, CloudFront, ECS
• Hands‑on experience with security tooling such as Sumo Logic, CrowdStrike, Snyk, Dependabot, AWS WAF, or Cloudflare
• A startup mindset, comfortable working across the stack and making decisions in ambiguity
• Familiarity with Angular/React and Ruby on Rails is a bonus

What's On Offer

• Competitive salary + discretionary annual bonus
• 30 days annual leave + 3 mental health days
• Medical aid contribution of up to R2,000/month
• Apple MacBook and necessary equipment
• Flexible hybrid working, you choose office or remote based on what makes sense
• Paid parking when in office
• A genuinely great team and culture