Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK
Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK

Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK

London Full-Time 48000 - 72000 £ / year (est.) No home office possible
D

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 hands‐on 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 you’ll 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 least‐privilege 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 non‐technical 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

At David Zwirner, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment that fosters creativity and innovation. Our London location provides a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of art and technology, with a strong emphasis on employee growth through mentorship and strategic leadership roles. We champion a culture of operational excellence, ensuring our team members are supported in their professional development while contributing to the success of influential artists worldwide.
D

Contact Detail:

David Zwirner Limited Recruiting Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

We think this is how you could land Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK

✨Tip 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.

✨Tip 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.

✨Tip 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.

✨Tip Number 4

Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in joining the David Zwirner team.

We think you need these skills to ace Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK

Leadership
Mentorship
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Terraform
AWS
ECS
RDS
ElastiCache
Lambda
CloudFront
CI/CD Pipelines
GitHub Actions
Container Workflows
Datadog
Cloud Security Principles

Some tips for your application 🫔

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: Don’t 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. Let’s make it happen!

How to prepare for a job interview at David Zwirner Limited

✨Know Your Tech Inside Out

Make sure you’re 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.

✨Showcase 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.

✨Prepare 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.

✨Communicate Clearly with All Stakeholders

You’ll 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.

Lead DevOps Engineer London, UK
David Zwirner Limited
Location: London

Land your dream job quicker with Premium

You’re marked as a top applicant with our partner companies
Individual CV and cover letter feedback including tailoring to specific job roles
Be among the first applications for new jobs with our AI application
1:1 support and career advice from our career coaches
Go Premium

Money-back if you don't land a job in 6-months

D
Similar positions in other companies
UK’s top job board for Gen Z
discover-jobs-cta
Discover now
>