DevOps Engineer

Lead AWS DevOps Engineer (Contract - Outside IR35)

Day Rate: 500-600 Outside IR35

Location: Fully Remote - Bristol HQ

Length: 6 Months

A FTSE 100 FinTech, is accelerating its technology transformation with the creation of a dynamic Hybrid Cloud Team.

As a Senior AWS DevOps Engineer , you will be an influential Cloud Ambassador , proactively engaging with diverse teams across the business to champion the powerful services and robust support offered within the AWS portfolio. As a natural self-starter , you will play a crucial role in shaping the strategic roadmap for the team, driving the delivery of cutting-edge cloud services back to the business.

This is an exceptional opportunity to define a new operating model for cloud services. You will initially manage our existing on-premises infrastructure, actively participate in the seamless migration of services to AWS, and ultimately take ownership of the evolving AWS platform, ensuring its security and reliability.

What you'll be doing:

• Work collaboratively within an agile framework to deliver projects efficiently and with meticulous organization, embracing DevOps principles.
• Continuously seek and implement innovative solutions, driving improvements, enhancements, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) through extensive automation , particularly leveraging Terraform .
• Implement and manage comprehensive monitoring and alerting for our AWS and VMware environments, including compute, storage, and backup, participating in the on-call rota to ensure system health.
• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for our VMware, compute, storage, monitoring, and backup technologies, aligning with overall business objectives.
• Proactively troubleshoot and resolve complex infrastructure issues across both on-premises and AWS environments, including network configurations and Firewall within AWS .
• Design, implement, and operate robust processes to guarantee optimal performance, capacity, and high availability, exceeding stringent business objectives.
• Integrate infrastructure management processes with CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps practices to embed security and automation deeply into our infrastructure lifecycle.
• Contribute to the security posture of our AWS environment, implementing and adhering to AWS Security best practices and policies.
• Engage in occasional out-of-hours work and on-call support for critical updates, incidents, and fixes.
• Ensure thorough and up-to-date documentation is created and maintained post-project delivery to facilitate seamless BAU support.

As a Lead Engineer and subject matter expert, you will be responsible for:

• Creating and owning key components of the technology roadmap and infrastructure architecture strategy for our hybrid cloud environment.
• Serving as the primary technical escalation point for Incident, Major Incident, and Problem Management, providing expert guidance and resolution.
• The ongoing management and optimization of sophisticated monitoring and alerting services, providing actionable insights into system performance.
• Providing technical approval for Change Management procedures, conducting thorough impact analysis and ensuring governance over team-initiated changes.
• Creating and maintaining comprehensive technical IT documentation, including standards, policies, and robust processes.
• Guiding and Mentoring junior team members, fostering their growth and technical expertise within the AWS and DevOps domains.
• Driving adoption and best practices for containerization technologies, including Kubernetes , within our AWS environment.
• Championing the use of Unix/Linux operating systems, particularly REL OS , as a foundational element of our infrastructure.
• Implementing and managing configuration management tools such as Puppet to ensure consistency and compliance across our infrastructure.

About you:

• Extensive hands-on experience in an Enterprise environment supporting a wide range of AWS services (VPC, EC2, CloudWatch, EKS , RDS, S3, EBS) with a strong focus on security and scalability.
• Proven ability to support on-premises Compute Platforms, including VMware, Enterprise Storage, and Backup Solutions.
• Deep understanding and practical experience managing sophisticated system monitoring technologies.
• Demonstrable experience working within a strict change control environment.
• A strong understanding of risk management principles and their application in a cloud environment.
• A proactive, solution-focused mindset with a proven ability to leverage your experience to develop innovative solutions and effectively resolve intricate technical challenges.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with a track record of forging effective relationships at all levels and the ability to influence, negotiate, and navigate challenging conversations with confidence.
• Highly adaptable and able to work effectively both independently and collaboratively within a team, proactively managing competing workloads and prioritizing effectively to meet critical deadlines.
• A strong commitment to continuous learning and improvement, both for yourself and the wider team, actively promoting positive change and a culture of continuous improvement.