Lead DevOps Engineer

Hippo Digital is recruiting for a Lead DevOps Engineer to join our growing consultancy. This is a pivotal role within our Managed Services team, leading the charge in delivering value and driving automation for our diverse Public and Private Sector clients. You will work alongside like-minded, talented engineers, shaping robust systems and applications that our customers can rely on.

Hippo’s Lead Engineers are experts in their field. You will act as a Lead consultant providing technical expertise practices both internally and to our clients. You will help to drive the team's technical deliverables, maintain client relationships and be passionate about developing and upskilling others. Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well-engineered systems beyond traditional boundaries. We leverage deep data insights and continuous innovation to deliver awesome platforms that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Lead DevOps Engineer will be a key architect and implementer in this mission.

Please note, we are looking for candidates who are looking for growth at this level (Lead), therefore the advertised salary band is the lower end of our full banding for this level of position, allowing for progression in the role.

Requirements of the Role

• Act as a technical SME within the Hippo engineering community to produce and ensure user-centred software is developed based on business requirements and following best practice.
• Champion Infrastructure-as-code and automation in every aspect of the solution, encouraging a platform agnostic approach.
• Be prepared to operate in a hands-on development environment, working with several different platforms, languages and frameworks.
• Champion, coach and encourage the maintenance of best practice and standards in Cloud architecture, data platform development, testing and support.
• Share knowledge gained through consultancy and product development with the wider community.
• Lead in the recruitment of other engineers, and support other consultants in their professional development.
• Ensure Hippo’s DevOps and Engineering communities contribute to Hippo’s business at a strategic level.
• Lead on new business opportunities ie. supporting with writing technical bids and proposals.
• Promote Hippo’s Data Herd externally (for example through writing Blogs, Workshops, Seminars or Conferences).

Skills and experience that you need

• Expert proficiency with Azure cloud services and Azure DevOps for seamless integration and deployment.
• Excellent experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining robust CI/CD pipelines, with significant experience in GitLab CI/CD Pipelines and debugging complex pipeline issues.
• Experience of leading the deployment and management of containerised applications using Kubernetes and Kubectl CLI functions.
• Excellent experience utilising Terraform extensively for declarative infrastructure provisioning across cloud environments.
• Possess strong Linux Administration & Use skills, particularly with RHEL and Alpine distributions, including managing GitLab Runners.
• Strong experience integrating and orchestrating testing tools such as PyTest and/or Selenium within automated pipelines to ensure code quality and reliability.
• Experience of work with Docker for containerisation and application packaging.
• Experience of implementing and managing monitoring solutions, with experience in Prometheus and Grafana for observability and alerting.
• Experience of implementing and managing robust security practices, including Encryption (TLS) and Secret Management in the Cloud.
• Experience of leveraging GitLab API for advanced automation, integration, and reporting.
• Knowledge of Security and Approval Planning processes, ensuring compliance and best practices are embedded throughout the development lifecycle.
• Apache Tomcat, SIP, RTF or Telephony experience is highly desirable.

What makes us great

• Contributory pension scheme (Hippo 6% with employee contributions of 2%).
• 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays.
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts.
• Critical illness cover.
• Life assurance and death in service cover.
• Volunteer days.
• Cycle-to-work scheme for the avid cyclists.
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicles scheme.
• Season ticket loans.
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions.
• Flexible benefits scheme with options of: private health cover, private dental cover, additional company pension contributions, additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days), wellbeing contribution, charity contributions, tree planting.

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo

At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We understand that having a diverse team unlocks our capacity for innovation, creativity and problem solving. Only by building a community of diverse perspectives, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds can we create an environment where all can contribute and thrive. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant. Hippo continually strives to remove barriers, provide accommodations and offer reasonable adjustments to ensure equity throughout our practices.

Hi, we’re Hippo. At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data-informed evidence, human-centred design and software engineering. We’re a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes. We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human-centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world. Our combination of data, design, and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society. We’re confident in our abilities, authentic in our approach, and passionate about what we do. If you’re looking for a digital services partner that can deliver real results, let us help you build for the future and make a lasting impact.

Hippo locations

We are headquartered in Leeds and located across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We’re on the lookout for top talent nationwide, so don’t let location hold you back from applying. We welcome candidates from all over the UK who possess the flexibility to work from any of our locations. Plus, we offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8k to help make your move a smooth one. It’s worth noting that, given the dynamic nature of our business, you may be required to work on-site at client locations or from your own home.