Senior DevOps Engineer

The Role

We are seeking a hands-on DevOps Engineer to join our Data and Analytics Platform team, driving the design and implementation of our next-generation cloud-based, streaming Data Mesh platform. This role is pivotal for enabling teams to create scalable, data-driven products and advancing our application modernization strategy. 

Our Vision 

We believe in building a modern, scalable data platform that empowers teams across the organization. Our vision is to create an infrastructure where data can be efficiently processed, stored, and accessed in real-time, enabling innovation and data-driven decision making at scale. 

Our next-generation streaming platform will transform our data capabilities into a strategic asset. Through well-designed architecture and automation, we aim to: 

• Provide teams with self-service infrastructure and tools 

• Enable real-time data processing and analytics 

• Create reliable, scalable, and cost-effective solutions 

By embracing cloud-native technologies, event-driven architectures, and modern data infrastructure patterns, we will deliver a seamless platform for processing, discovering, and utilizing trusted, connected, and real-time data. Our focus on automation, observability, and developer experience will ensure teams can move quickly while maintaining reliability and security. 

How You’ll Help Take Us There

Design and Implement Cloud Infrastructure: Architect and deploy scalable cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles to support our Data Mesh platform. Experience with major cloud providers (AWS/Azure) and modern IaC tools (Terraform, CloudFormation) is essential.   

Build Automation Pipelines: Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines for data products, ensuring reliable deployment, testing, and monitoring of data infrastructure and applications. Experience with tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions is required. 

Implement Platform Observability: Design and deploy comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions across the data platform. Experience with tools like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, or similar technologies is crucial. 

Enable Self-Service Infrastructure:  

• Develop automated provisioning systems for data infrastructure
• Create and maintain infrastructure templates and patterns
• Implement GitOps workflows for infrastructure management
• Build developer portals and self-service tooling 

Security and Compliance Automation:  

• Implement security controls and compliance checks as code
• Automate security scanning and vulnerability management
• Design and implement IAM and access management solutions
• Maintain audit trails and compliance reporting automation 

Java Platform Engineering:  

• Design and maintain Java-based microservices for data platform components
• Optimize JVM performance and garbage collection for data-intensive applications
• Implement resilient Java services using Spring Boot/Spring Cloud
• Create and maintain Java-based SDK and libraries for platform services
• Design RESTful APIs and event-driven interfaces for platform integration 

Performance Optimization:  

• Monitor and optimize platform performance
• Implement auto-scaling solutions design for high availability and disaster recovery
• Optimize cost through infrastructure efficiency 

 Lead Platform Re-Architecture:  

• Transform our existing data platform architecture to align with Data Mesh principles
• Design and implement our Apache Iceberg adoption strategy, enabling ACID transactions and time travel capabilities
• Create standardized patterns for teams to effectively adopt and optimize Iceberg tables 

Drive Release Excellence:  

• Establish automated release processes that balance agility with platform stability
• Build deployment frameworks with comprehensive validation, monitoring, and rollback capabilities
• Implement coordinated release strategies across distributed domains 

Enable Technical Success:  

• Design reference architectures and implementation patterns for domain teams
• Lead technical design reviews and architecture governance
• Provide technical guidance during the transition to Data Mesh architecture 

What We’re Looking For

10+ years of experience in DevOps/Platform Engineering roles within a data operations team 

Cloud & Infrastructure:  

• Extensive experience with AWS, particularly EKS and EKS Anywhere
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes and container orchestration
• Strong background in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Terragrunt
• Experience with GitOps practices using ArgoCD
• Knowledge of distributed systems and event-driven architectures
• Strong knowledge of logging, monitoring, APM tracing and alerting tools (ELK, Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, etc.) 

Development & Engineering:  

• Proficient in Java development and JVM optimization
• Experience with build tools (Maven/Gradle) and dependency management
• Strong background in unit testing frameworks and testing practices
• Expertise in Git version control and collaborative development
• Experience with Apache Kafka and Kafka Streams
• Background in monitoring and performance optimization for Java applications 

CI/CD & Automation:  

• Experience designing and managing Jenkins/Github/Gitlab pipelines
• Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash)
• Understanding of DevOps practices and automation principles 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience with data mesh or similar distributed data architectures
• Relevant cloud certifications
• Experience building developer platforms or portals
• Background in DataOps practices 

What You Can Expect from Us 

• Central Location: based at our city offices near St Paul's.  
• Free Food: We provide lunch each day of the week when the employee attends the office via our vendor Feedr as well as breakfast cereals, office snacks and drinks from our free vending machines 
• Paid Time Off: 25 days annual leave entitlement plus 2 charity days
• Reward for your service: We offer a two-week bonus holiday after completing each 5 years of service 
• Core benefits: Besides competitive standard benefits package we offer private medical (PMI) for family, Cash Plan, health screenings, dental cover, 6X life assurance, critical illness cover, income protection, pension, car leasing (Tusker electronic cars), reimbursement for wellness stipend, interest free season ticket loan and a “Share Incentive” plan
• Tuition Assistance and Professional Training: Benefit from on-demand learning, boot camps, and opportunities to attend conferences 

Collaboration and innovation are integral to our success – it's how we got to where we are and how we’ll maintain and grow our competitive advantage. We believe this best happens in an office environment. Employees in Technology work in the office 2 or more days a week. This approach still allows for flexibility depending on the business function you work within but also helps us maintain a collaborative office environment long-term.