Sr. DevOps Engineer

Job Title: Sr. DevOps Engineer

Location: London, UK (3 days in office)

SC Cleared: Required

Job Type: Full-Time

Experience: 5-8 years

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Platform Engineer to build and maintain the core infrastructure and tooling that empowers our data scientists, economists, and developers working on our cutting-edge Azure Databricks Economic Data Platform. This platform is critical for our Monetary Analysis, Forecasting, and Modelling activities. The Platform Engineer will focus on creating a self-service, scalable, and reliable platform that streamlines development workflows, simplifies infrastructure management, and enhances overall productivity. This role requires a strong understanding of cloud computing (specifically Azure), infrastructure-as-code (IaC), DevOps practices, containerisation, orchestration, and a passion for building developer-friendly platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

Platform Design & Development:

• Design, develop, and maintain the core platform infrastructure on Azure, including networking, compute, storage, security, and identity management.
• Implement infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep to automate infrastructure provisioning and management.
• Develop and maintain platform components, such as APIs, CLIs, and web interfaces, to provide self-service capabilities to users.

Azure Databricks Integration & Optimisation:

• Deeply integrate Azure Databricks into the platform, ensuring seamless access and efficient resource utilisation.
• Implement automation for Databricks workspace setup, cluster configuration, and job deployments.
• Optimise Databricks workloads for performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

Containerisation & Orchestration:

• Implement and manage containerised applications and services using Docker and Kubernetes (or Azure Kubernetes Service - AKS).
• Design and implement container orchestration strategies for deploying and scaling platform components.

CI/CD Pipeline Automation:

• Design and implement robust CI/CD pipelines for building, testing, and deploying platform components and user applications.
• Automate build processes, unit tests, integration tests, and deployment processes.
• Implement advanced deployment strategies (e.g., blue/green deployments, canary releases).

Monitoring, Logging & Alerting:

• Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting systems to proactively identify and address performance issues, errors, and security threats.
• Use tools like Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, or similar to collect and analyse metrics, logs, and traces.
• Configure alerts and notifications to ensure timely responses to critical events.

Security & Compliance:

• Implement security best practices and controls within the platform infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.
• Ensure compliance with relevant security standards and regulations.
• Implement security scanning and vulnerability management processes.

Documentation & Support:

• Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for the platform, including API documentation, user guides, and troubleshooting guides.
• Provide support to users of the platform.

Collaboration & Communication:

• Collaborate closely with data scientists, economists, developers, and other stakeholders to understand their needs and gather feedback on the platform.
• Communicate technical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Essential Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps engineering, or a related role.
• Strong experience with Azure cloud platform and services.
• Extensive experience with IaC tools like Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep.
• Solid understanding of CI/CD principles and experience with CI/CD tools like Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or GitLab CI.
• Strong experience with containerisation technologies like Docker and orchestration tools like Kubernetes (or AKS).
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools.
• Scripting skills in PowerShell, Bash, YAML and Python. Good understanding of networking concepts and security best practices.
• Excellent problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience with Azure Databricks and its integration with platform tooling.
• Experience with configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet, or Chef.
• Experience building and maintaining internal developer platforms.
• Experience working in a regulated industry (e.g., financial services).
• Azure certifications (e.g., Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, Azure Administrator Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert).