SysOps / DevOps Engineer in Newcastle upon Tyne

Location: Newcastle – Hybrid Office & Home

Who Are We?

We're mkodo — a tech company at the forefront of digital innovation in the iGaming, sports betting, and lottery industries. Our team creates world-class digital products and apps, and we're the creators of GeoLocs — the industry-leading geolocation technology that's powering seamless, compliant play for operators across regulated markets worldwide.

In February 2020, mkodo was acquired by Pollard Banknote, a global leader in the lottery space. This partnership brings us the stability, resources, and global reach of an established industry giant — while we continue to operate with the agility and innovation of a tech-first company.

But we're more than just our products. We're proud to be a people-first, inclusive, and high-performance workplace. Our culture is built on trust, collaboration, and a shared passion for innovation — and we've been officially recognised as a Great Place to Work, with a 94% employee satisfaction score, well above the industry benchmark.

At mkodo, we celebrate diversity, champion personal and professional growth, and believe that the best technology is built by empowered, supported teams. Whether you're contributing to our award-winning apps or shaping the future of GeoLocs, you'll be part of a company that values your voice and invests in your future.

About the role:

As a SysOps / DevOps Engineer, you will be a member of the IT Operations function, providing technical and operational contributions across mkodo's infrastructure and platform services. You will be part of the team taking responsibility for the stability, security, and continuous improvement of on‐premise and cloud environments. The role spans on‐premise and cloud platforms, and includes close collaboration with development teams, internal stakeholders, clients and our parent organisation to ensure services are reliable, secure and professionally operated.

Main responsibilities are:

• Be part of the team managing the operational health, reliability, and performance of mkodo infrastructure across cloud and on‐prem environments.
• Contribute to the design, implementation, and evolution of CI/CD pipelines, automation, and Infrastructure as Code practices.
• Uphold technical standards and best practices for system configuration, security, monitoring, and resilience.
• Be able to diagnose and resolve complex incidents and production issues.
• Contribute to resolving incidents, changes, and architectural discussions.

Service Delivery & Collaboration

• Ensure operational commitments and SLAs are met, including client‐facing investigations and resolutions.
• Work closely with development teams to enable effective DevOps practices across development, test, and production environments.
• Liaise with internal stakeholders and our parent company.
• Ensure systems and services are well‐documented, with clear runbooks and knowledge base content.

Security, Compliance & Risk

• Take responsibility for operational support of ISO27001 ISMS implementation and ongoing compliance.
• Adhere to all relevant mkodo ISO27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) policies, procedures and requirements at all times.
• Complete any reasonable tasks relating to the mkodo ISO27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS).
• Ensure security, backup, monitoring, and data protection controls are consistently applied and reviewed.
• Proactively identify, communicate, and mitigate operational and security risks.

Operational Excellence

• Undertake proactive monitoring, alerting, and incident response processes.
• Participate in the on‐call rota.
• Contribute to improvements in tooling, automation, and operational processes to reduce toil and increase reliability.

Key Skills & Attributes:

The successful candidate is expected to be present in the office once a week (minimum of four times per month) for team meetings and collaboration. Inter-office travel is at times expected as part of this role between our Newcastle, and London offices.

Must have:

• Hands‐on experience with Linux systems (CentOS / RHEL / Ubuntu).
• Practical knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) and Kubernetes.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (preferably Terraform) and automation / configuration management (e.g. Ansible).
• Experience in designing, operating, and improving CI/CD pipelines (e.g. Jenkins, Git).
• Proven ability to troubleshoot and stabilise complex production environments.
• Experience operating within secure, compliant environments (ISO27001 awareness or hands‐on experience).
• Strong communication skills, with confidence in engaging technical and non‐technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable taking ownership of outcomes and decisions, not just implementation tasks.

Desirable:

• Networking knowledge.
• Experience administering Office 365 / collaboration tooling.
• AWS Billing experience.

Benefits:

mkodo is a great place to work, along with a competitive renumeration package we offer excellent benefits comprising:

• Hybrid Working
• Generous Holiday Allowance (increasing with service)
• Gifted day over Christmas period
• Birthday off!
• Performance Bonus & Profit Share Scheme
• Quarterly team events
• Group income protection
• Life Insurance
• Charity/Volunteer Day
• Tech Loan Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Contributory Pension
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Home working expense payment
• Friday beers provided in each office!
• Relevant individual training budget.
• Digital Nomad Policy
• Generous refer a friend scheme.

We encourage growth and progression because we value our colleagues and know that we best succeed when achieving and developing together.