DevOps Architect / Head of DevOps
Nigel Wright Recruitment — Newcastle Upon Tyne, GB
- Published on
About the Role
In this role, you'll provide architectural direction, hands-on support, and people leadership to a small, distributed group of DevOps engineers embedded across cross-functional teams. You will lead the DevOps function, facilitating the smooth integration of DevOps practices into the product team's day to day operations.
Key Responsibilities
- Solution Architecture: Collaborate with various teams to design and implement solutions that meet business requirements.
- Line Management: Manage a group of embedded DevOps engineers, providing mentorship, coaching, and performance management to foster professional growth and development.
- Driving Quality and Standards: Identify opportunities to improve quality and work with teams to effect change, promoting reliability, security, performance, observability, etc.
- Security and Compliance: Ensure systems remain compliant with relevant controls and help funnel critical infrastructure security and compliance issues into product backlogs.
- Cost Management: Manage budgets for development environments and software, helping teams track and manage spend.
- Hands-On Development: Lead by example with technical proficiency and direct contributions to team deliverables.
- Reporting, Stakeholder Communication & Alignment: Provide regular updates on team performance, initiatives, and challenges to leadership and stakeholders.
Skills & Knowledge
- Cloud Expertise (AWS): Strong knowledge of AWS services, their applications, and limitations.
- Infrastructure as Code: Proficiency with AWS ecosystem tools such as CDK, TypeScript, and CloudFormation.
- CI/CD Proficiency: In-depth understanding of the software development lifecycle and CI/CD tools (e.g., GitHub Actions).
- Scalable System Design: Experience building and maintaining scalable, highly available systems with established SLAs/SLOs.
- NoSQL Expertise: Practical experience with NoSQL technologies such as DynamoDB, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
- Design Patterns: Understanding of modern infrastructure design patterns, including serverless computing, containers, gateways, and event brokers.
Education & Experience
- 8+ years of experience with AWS and cloud technologies.
- 8+ years of experience in DevOps roles.
- 3+ years of experience in a leadership or management capacity.
- Prior experience in a SaaS environment is a plus.