Contract DevOps Engineer

Rate: £600 per day
IR35: Outside IR35
Location: Remote, with 1 day per month onsite in Romsey
Clearance: Active SC Clearance required
Contract Length: Initially until the end of June 2027

Overview

We are seeking an experienced DevOps Engineer to join a high-performing engineering team delivering cloud-native platforms and modern deployment capabilities within a secure environment.

This role requires a strong technical background across AWS, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD automation. The successful candidate will be responsible for building and maintaining scalable, automated environments while driving best practices across the software delivery lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build and support AWS-based infrastructure and platform services.
• Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code solutions using Terraform and Packer.
• Build, optimise and maintain GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Deploy and manage containerised applications using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Implement and support GitOps deployment methodologies using ArgoCD.
• Package and manage Kubernetes deployments through Helm.
• Administer and support Rancher-managed Kubernetes environments.
• Manage artefact repositories and release workflows using JFrog Artifactory.
• Develop tooling, automation and integrations using Python.
• Implement monitoring, alerting and observability solutions using Grafana, Prometheus and OpenTelemetry.
• Promote engineering best practices, including Conventional Commits and robust release management processes.
• Troubleshoot platform, infrastructure and deployment issues across development and production environments.
• Work closely with developers, architects and stakeholders to improve platform reliability, security and delivery performance.

Essential Skills

Candidates must demonstrate strong commercial experience with the following:

Cloud & Infrastructure

• AWS
• Terraform
• Packer

Containerisation & Orchestration

• Docker
• Kubernetes
• Rancher
• Helm

CI/CD & GitOps

• GitLab CI/CD
• ArgoCD
• JFrog Artifactory
• Conventional Commits

Automation & Development

• Python

Monitoring & Observability

• Grafana
• Prometheus
• OpenTelemetry

Desirable Experience

• Experience within secure or government environments.
• Exposure to platform engineering practices.
• DevSecOps and security tooling experience.
• Experience operating large-scale container platforms.
• Knowledge of microservices architecture.
• AWS certifications.

Required Clearance

Candidates must hold active and transferable SC Clearance at the time of application.