Principal DevOps Engineer - Secure Environments

Description

Are you ready to tackle complex automation and DevOps problems behind some of the UK's most important defence, government and public sector work?

This is a Principal DevOps Engineer post in the Cyber & Security Solutions Division. You will build, deploy, run and improve automated platform solutions for critical defence, government and public sector services.

Principal DevOps Engineers here are recognised technical leaders. They do hands-on engineering and also hold technical authority, shaping and automating secure platforms in tightly controlled environments.

You will work with platform, infrastructure, security and delivery teams to make solution delivery faster, more consistent, more resilient and more secure through automation and modern engineering practice.

You will take the lead on customer problems in an agile, inventive, team-based way.

The company is a global aerospace, defence and security business, headquartered in Italy, with over 53,000 staff worldwide and 8,500 across 9 UK sites.

Responsibilities

• Be the technical authority for automation, DevOps and platform engineering across projects and programmes.
• Lead the design, build and ongoing improvement of CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code and platform automation.
• Build and maintain secure deployment pipelines for highly controlled, regulated environments.
• Partner with platform engineers, security engineers, architects and project teams to automate the deployment, configuration and running of infrastructure and applications.
• Lead the adoption of DevSecOps, building security controls into every stage of delivery.
• Gather and analyse technical requirements, and produce high and low level designs where needed.
• Lead the technical work on assigned work packages, covering planning, estimates, delivery oversight and reporting.
• Push automation, repeatability and sound engineering practice across platform teams.
• Mentor and coach DevOps engineers, platform engineers and junior staff to build technical skill across the organisation.
• Contribute to technology assessments, feasibility studies, innovation and future capability planning.
• Present, defend and assure technical solutions to customers and stakeholders.

Requirements

• Broad expertise across DevOps, automation and modern platform engineering.
• The ability to balance hands-on engineering with technical leadership and mentoring.
• Problem-solving skills, with the confidence to recommend and defend technical choices.
• Experience driving automation and continuous improvement across engineering teams.
• The ability to work effectively in highly regulated, secure or defence environments.
• Strong communication skills, working across engineering, delivery, security and customer teams.
• Core areas (must have): design, build and operation of CI/CD pipelines.
• Core areas (must have): Infrastructure as Code and configuration management.
• Core areas (must have): containerisation and orchestration technologies.
• Core areas (must have): automation and scripting in Python, PowerShell, Bash or similar.
• Core areas (must have): platform deployment pipelines and release automation.
• Core areas (must have): DevOps and DevSecOps practice.
• Core areas (must have): secure software delivery, with security controls built into engineering workflows.
• Core areas (must have): enterprise Git-based version control and branching strategies.
• Core areas (must have): cloud and hybrid platform technologies.
• Core areas (must have): delivery within highly controlled, secure or defence environments.
• Core areas (must have): technical leadership and mentoring of engineering teams.
• Desirable: experience in one or more of these areas, highly desirable but not required: VMware Aria Automation Suite.
• Desirable: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), vSphere, vSAN or NSX.
• Desirable: OpenShift, Kubernetes or related container platforms.
• Desirable: Terraform, Ansible and platform automation tooling.
• Desirable: infrastructure and platform monitoring solutions.
• Desirable: secrets management, certificate management and PKI integration.
• Desirable: Privileged Access Management integration and automation.
• Desirable: cross-domain or air-gapped deployment environments.
• Desirable: Active Directory and wider enterprise service integration.
• Desirable: Azure, AWS or hybrid cloud deployments.
• Desirable: security monitoring and integration with SOC tooling.
• Desirable: industry certifications in DevOps, cloud, security or automation.
• You do not need to be a specialist in every area. The company is most interested in DevOps leaders with strong automation experience who can apply it across complex secure platforms.
• Pre-employment screening to the UK Government Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) applies.
• National Security Vetting (NSV) controls also apply.
• Developed Vetting (DV) clearance is required before you start, because of the systems supported.
• Guidance on vetting is available on the company careers site.

Conditions

Based at the Bristol Coldharbour Lane site, supporting secure customer programmes run from Yeovil and other secure locations.

Regular and sustained attendance at the Yeovil Lysander Road site is required.

This is not a standard hybrid role, and expect significant on-site work throughout delivery.

Flexible or remote working may be possible for suitable activities where programme, customer and security needs allow.

The listed work model is onsite and the contract is permanent.

The company is committed to an inclusive, accessible workplace, and will support any accessibility needs you raise during recruitment.

Benefits

• Generous leave, with up to 12 additional flexi-days a year that you can accrue.
• An employer pension contribution of up to 15%.
• Free mental health support, financial advice and access to employee networks, including Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity.
• A bonus scheme open to all employees at management level and below.
• Free access to over 4,000 online courses on Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.
• A financial reward through the referral programme when you refer a friend.
• Up to £500 a year in flexible benefits, such as private healthcare, dental, family cover, tech and lifestyle discounts and gym memberships.
• Flexible hours with hybrid options, and part-time working can be discussed for this role.
• Salary sits within a grade-based band, either the full grade band or a narrower hiring range within it, benchmarked against the external market. Pay above the standard range goes through governance controls to protect internal equity.