Cloud Operations Engineer (AWS or Azure) Engineering · Cheltenham

About Finova

Finova is the UK’s largest financial services technology provider, supporting one in every five mortgages nationwide. Our agile, cloud-native solutions enable over 60 banks, building societies, specialist lenders, equity release providers and a network of 2,400+ brokers to stay ahead in a competitive market. Built on open architecture and backed by deep industry expertise, our platform is designed to scale. Each year, we process over £50 billion in loans, manage nearly £50 billion in savings, and support the digital servicing of more than 650,000 UK borrower accounts. Be part of a team that’s driving innovation, enabling growth and shaping the future of UK lending.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced, hands-on Cloud Operations Engineer to join the team responsible for the availability, security, resilience, and performance of our AWS-hosted infrastructure. This is a strictly hands-on, operational role focused on keeping our production environments stable, secure, and performant. You will operate as a core technical practitioner, balancing day-to-day BAU operations and infrastructure changes with continuous improvements to our resilience, automation, monitoring, and security posture. If you thrive in a busy environment, enjoy collaborating with development and security teams, and have a strong bias toward operational discipline, we want to hear from you.

About you

• AWS Expertise: Proven hands-on experience managing AWS-hosted production environments, particularly compute (EC2, ECS), Application Load Balancers (ALB), and networking (VPCs, Security Groups, routing).
• Core Infrastructure Skills: Strong technical competency in Windows Server administration and foundational networking/load-balancing principles.
• SQL Server Experience: Operational support knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server (Note: This is not a DBA role, but requires comfort with basic triage and monitoring).
• Automation & CI/CD: Hands-on experience executing, supporting, and troubleshooting CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure automation issues.
• Observability Tooling: Proficiency with monitoring systems like Datadog, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray, or similar tools.
• Process-Driven Mindset: A highly disciplined approach to change management, access control, and operational governance, ideally within a regulated environment.

What will you be doing?

• Infrastructure Management: Operate and support our AWS production and non-production environments, focusing heavily on compute services (EC2, ECS), VPC Networking, and storage.
• Incident Response & Triage: Act as the 1st and 2nd line of defense for platform/application issues. Participate in an out-of-hours on-call rotation for P1/P2 incidents and scheduled deployments.
• Change & Release Support: Execute approved infrastructure changes following strict security controls. Support delivery teams with automated deployments and troubleshoot failed or degraded CI/CD releases.
• Database Support: Provide operational support for Microsoft SQL Server (health checks, job monitoring, basic triage, backup verification) and collaborate with DBA teams for deeper optimizations.
• Monitoring & Observability: Own and optimize monitoring tools (Datadog, CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray) to catch genuine service-impacting issues while reducing alert fatigue.
• Security & Compliance: Assess and remediate vulnerabilities, assist with compliance audits (ISO, regulatory assurance), and contribute to incident post-mortems.
• Disaster Recovery: Support resilience activities, including failover testing, game days, and the validation of recovery runbooks.

What We Offer

• Hybrid working: We operate on a hybrid model that is primarily office-based, requiring three days in the office each week, with the flexibility to work remotely for the remainder.
• Private medical insurance: Comprehensive health cover, with the option to add your family to your plan, because your well-being matters to us.
• Life assurance & income protection: We provide life assurance and income protection to give you peace of mind for the future.
• Family friendly policies: Our enhanced family-friendly policy goes beyond maternity and paternity leave, offering paid time off for when plans change or alternative paths to parenthood are needed.
• Work from anywhere: Some thrive in the office, others at home — and many do best with choice. With approval, Finova employees can work abroad for up to 4 weeks each year.
• Flexible holiday package: Enjoy 25 days paid holiday allowance, plus all public holidays. And, you can rebook any public holidays for a day that aligns with your personal beliefs or celebration calendar. We also offer holiday trading allowing you to purchase or sell your holiday allowance.
• Company pension scheme: With salary exchange, you save on tax and can build a secure future.
• Employee assistance programme: We understand that mental health is just as important as physical health. Access to a 24/7 confidential counselling helpline ensures you have support when you need it.
• Electric car scheme: Get a brand-new electric vehicle with salary sacrifice as a benefit, paid for through your gross monthly pay, saving on Income Tax and National Insurance.
• Health cash plan: Our Health Cash Plan empowers you to prioritise your wellbeing by providing effortless reimbursement for everyday healthcare costs, from dental and optical visits to physiotherapy.
• Gym discounts: GymFlex offers significant savings on annual memberships at over 3,000 gyms and leisure centers nationwide.
• Perks that matter: We fuel your day with a fully stocked pantry of fresh fruit and snacks and keep the team spirit high with weekly socials and events.

Equal Opportunity Statement

We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. If you’re passionate about this role but don’t meet all the criteria, please reach out, we’d love to discuss how your skills and experiences align with our needs.