At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead and mentor the DevOps team while enhancing cloud infrastructure security and reliability.
- Company: David Zwirner, a leading global art gallery with a focus on innovative exhibitions.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, dynamic work environment, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Why this job: Join a creative team and make a significant impact in the art world through technology.
- Qualifications: Proven experience in DevOps leadership and expert-level skills in AWS and Terraform.
- Other info: Work across European time zones in a collaborative and strategic role.
The predicted salary is between 48000 - 72000 £ per year.
At David Zwirner, we look to be an industry leader in our field, with our artists at the center of what we do. Our global exhibition program expands beyond our locations in New York, London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Paris, representing seventy artists and estates. Home to innovative, singular, and pioneering exhibitions across a variety of media and genres. Active in both the primary and secondary markets, David Zwirner has helped foster the careers of some of the most influential artists today.
About the Opportunity
David Zwirner seeks an experienced and strategic Lead DevOps Engineer to guide the maturation of our infrastructure and provide coverage across European time zones (UTC to UTC +3). This role emphasizes technical leadership, strategic planning, and team mentorship. You will be responsible for enhancing the security, reliability, and resilience of our cloud footprint: primarily AWS, with additional environments including Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, Databricks, and Vercel.
As the leader of the DevOps function, you will define and execute the strategic roadmap while remaining handsāon with your team. We are seeking a pragmatic leader who will take full ownership of our infrastructure, systematically address technical debt, and champion a culture of operational excellence and security. Candidates must be diligent, extremely organized, and possess excellent prioritization and communication skills. The core engineering team operates on New York hours, so this position will play a key leadership and coverage role for EMEA.
What youāll do:
- Leadership: Lead direction and mentor for the DevOps team; set technical direction for infrastructure and security; foster a culture of ownership, reliability, and continuous improvement.
- Roadmap Ownership & Strategy: Define, own, and drive the Infrastructure & Security Roadmap, prioritizing infrastructure ownership, profound monitoring, disaster recovery, developer experience, and security hardening.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Inventory and capture unmanaged resources in Terraform (and CDK/SST where required); create reusable modules and guardrails; institute code reviews and change management.
- Platform Operations (AWS-first): Design and operate services built on ECS (Fargate), ECR, RDS, ElastiCache, S3, ALB/CloudFront, WAF, Lambda, EventBridge, CloudWatch; improve networking, IAM, and resilience.
- Resilience & Reliability: Modernize critical workloads; design and run disaster recovery drills; automate backups/restore; codify RPO/RTO targets and runbooks; lead incident response and postmortems.
- Observability & On-Call: Standardize monitoring/alerting with Datadog, CloudWatch, Sentry, PagerDuty; implement SLOs and noise-reduction baselines; maintain a humane on-call rotation.
- Security Hardening: Mature the configuration and rollout of tools like Jit and CrowdStrike; improve firewall/WAF rules; enforce secrets management and leastāprivilege access; champion threat modeling and automated scanning.
- Collaboration & Governance: Serve as a key technical voice on the Architecture Review Board; partner with Product and Engineering to align solutions with operational standards and business goals.
What you need to have:
- Legal authorization to work in the UK.
- Track record in a senior/lead DevOps, SRE, or Platform role, including mentorship of engineers.
- Expert-level Terraform (including importing existing resources and taming legacy estates).
- Deep, hands-on experience with AWS (ECS, RDS, ElastiCache, Lambda, ALB, WAF, S3, CloudFront, EventBridge, CloudWatch) and production networking/IAM.
- Proven design and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions) and container workflows (Docker, ECS Fargate or Kubernetes).
- Proficiency with modern observability/monitoring (Datadog, CloudWatch, Sentry, PagerDuty), incident response, and incident retrospectives.
- Strong background in cloud security principles and practical hardening.
- Ability to define and execute a technical roadmap and communicate with both technical and nonātechnical stakeholders.
What we would like you to have:
- Experience with GCP, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, and managed platforms (Databricks, Vercel).
- Familiarity with SST/CDK, Next.js/Vercel delivery flows, and performance considerations for web platforms.
- VPN/zero-trust networking (e.g., Tailscale); perimeter hardening and WAF tuning.
Please submit a resume and cover letter, and be prepared to provide three (3) professional references upon request.
Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK employer: David Zwirner Limited
Contact Detail:
David Zwirner Limited Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice š¤«
We think this is how you could land Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK
āØTip Number 1
Network like a pro! Attend industry meetups, conferences, or even local tech events. You never know who you might bump into that could help you land that Lead DevOps Engineer role at David Zwirner.
āØTip Number 2
Show off your skills! Create a personal project or contribute to open-source. This not only sharpens your abilities but also gives you something tangible to discuss during interviews.
āØTip Number 3
Prepare for the interview by brushing up on your technical knowledge and leadership skills. Be ready to discuss how you would tackle infrastructure challenges and mentor your team effectively.
āØTip Number 4
Donāt forget to apply through our website! Itās the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows youāre genuinely interested in joining the David Zwirner team.
We think you need these skills to ace Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK
Some tips for your application š«”
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV is tailored to the Lead DevOps Engineer role. Highlight your experience with AWS, Terraform, and any relevant leadership roles you've held. We want to see how your skills align with our needs!
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to shine! Use it to explain why you're passionate about this role and how you can contribute to our team. Be sure to mention your strategic planning and mentorship experience.
Showcase Your Technical Skills: Donāt hold back on showcasing your technical expertise! Include specific examples of projects where you've improved infrastructure or security. We love seeing hands-on experience in action!
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply through our website for a smoother process. It helps us keep track of applications and ensures you get the attention you deserve. Letās make it happen!
How to prepare for a job interview at David Zwirner Limited
āØKnow Your Tech Inside Out
Make sure youāre well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, especially AWS and Terraform. Brush up on your hands-on experience with ECS, RDS, and other services. Be ready to discuss specific projects where you've implemented these tools.
āØShowcase Your Leadership Skills
As a Lead DevOps Engineer, you'll need to demonstrate your ability to mentor and lead a team. Prepare examples of how you've guided teams in the past, tackled technical challenges, and fostered a culture of ownership and reliability.
āØPrepare for Scenario-Based Questions
Expect questions that assess your problem-solving skills and strategic thinking. Think about how you would handle incidents, improve security, or modernise workloads. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your answers.
āØCommunicate Clearly with All Stakeholders
Youāll need to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical teams. Practice explaining complex concepts in simple terms. This will show your ability to collaborate effectively and align solutions with business goals.