Senior AWS DevOps Engineer in Leeds

Hippo is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of Public and Private Sector clients. We are recruiting for a Senior DevOps Engineer to join our Hippo Herd as part of the Managed Services Team. This is a pivotal role within our Engineering function, leading the charge in delivering value and driving automation for our clients.

As a Senior DevOps Engineer in our Managed Services Team, you will play an important role in making Hippo the best Consultancy out there. You will work alongside talented engineers, shaping robust, cloud‑native systems. You will be an expert in your field, acting as a Senior Consultant providing technical expertise both internally and to our clients. You will drive the team’s technical deliverables and be passionate about developing yourself and others. You will act as a Senior Consultant to deliver DevOps services to our clients.

Senior DevOps Engineers at Hippo are experienced practitioners who lead the design of automated infrastructure, ensure technical excellence, and mentor others to maintain high standards of platform support. Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well‑engineered systems. We leverage deep data insights and continuous innovation to deliver awesome platforms that allow our customers to get the most from their digital services. The Senior DevOps Engineer (Managed Services) will be a key architect and implementer in this mission. There is an on‑call requirement as part of our Managed Services Team. All applicants must be willing to be part of the rota.

Your Role in a Nutshell:

• Demonstrate technical expertise within the Hippo’s Managed Services and wider engineering communities to ensure user‑centred, automated infrastructure is developed based on business requirements and best practices.
• Champion Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC) and automation in every aspect of the solution, ensuring repeatable and reliable deployments.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues to explore, design, and deliver solutions to complex client problems.
• Design and manage software development and deployment pipelines, resolving issues and potential bottlenecks before they occur.
• Operate in a hands‑on environment, working with various AWS services, platforms, and frameworks.
• Coach and encourage the maintenance of standards in AWS architecture, CI/CD, testing, and platform support.
• Lead in the recruitment of other engineers and support consultants in their professional development through knowledge sharing.
• Ensure Hippo’s Managed Services, DevOps and Engineering communities contribute to the business at a strategic level.
• Promote Hippo’s Managed Services Herd externally through blogs, workshops, or conferences.

Skills and experience that you need:

• Expert proficiency with AWS cloud services (including EC2, EKS, Lambda, S3, RDS, and IAM).
• Strong experience with Python.
• Excellent experience in designing and maintaining robust pipelines using GitLab CI/CD or GitHub Actions, including debugging complex issues.
• Strong experience in the deployment and management of containerised applications using Amazon EKS (Kubernetes).
• Extensive experience utilising Terraform for complex infrastructure provisioning.
• Experience integrating and orchestrating testing tools (such as PyTest or Selenium) within automated pipelines.
• Deep experience with Docker for containerisation, image optimisation, and application packaging.
• Experience implementing monitoring and logging solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, or AWS CloudWatch.
• Experience implementing robust security practices, including AWS Secrets Manager, encryption, and IAM.
• Mastery of Agile methods and techniques such as Scrum, Kanban, and TDD.
• Excellent verbal/written communication skills, able to articulate in both technical and non‑technical terms depending on audience.

• Previous experience of working on GOV/NHS projects or in a consultancy environment.

Benefits:

• Contributory Pension Scheme (Hippo 6% & Employee 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 under‑represented 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.

Hippo Locations:

We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We’re on the lookout for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on‑site at a Hippo office or at an in/out‑of‑town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent) and therefore candidates will need to be open/flexible to travel and working on one of those sites at least 2 days per week. We offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8,000 (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.