DevOps Engineer (AWS Platform and Software Engineer)

About the Role

We are looking for a hands-on DevOps / Platform Engineer to help evolve and operate our cloud trading infrastructure. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys owning AWS infrastructure, CI/CD and platform reliability, while also using software engineering skills to build internal tools and targeted application improvements. You will thrive here if you care about pragmatic delivery, continual learning, high standards, and building systems that make the whole team more effective.

This role is for someone who wants to own real systems in production, not just pipelines and dashboards.

What are you going to do?

As part of the Engineering team, you will report directly into the Chief of Staff and work closely with our Lead Engineer with the mission to build out, maintain and support the tools and processes for our cloud trading infrastructure and curate a high performing, ‘well-oiled’ Engineering team. You will also contribute to software engineering work where it creates leverage for the business, for example internal tooling, automation, platform services, and targeted application improvements. Specific examples of specific responsibilities are:

• Own and improving AWS infrastructure across multiple environments
• Operate and maintain Kubernetes (EKS) clusters in production
• Manage and evolve infrastructure as code using Terragrunt
• Build and improve CI/CD pipelines using GitLab CI
• Debug complex issues across distributed systems, often without full visibility
• Help us move to our new systems from our legacy systems, paying down technical debt where it matters
• Support services including Kafka, Postgres (Aurora), MongoDB, and identity (Keycloak)
• Improve observability using tools such as Datadog to reduce firefighting over time
• Collaborate closely with engineers to make systems easier to build, deploy, and operate, streamlining the entire software lifecycle
• Implement and maintain automated deployment pipelines, infrastructure as code to manage and deliver effective best practices, reduce errors and streamline delivery of changes.

We need someone who must have the following…

• AWS including EKS, IAM, S3, RDS/Aurora, and networking
• Kubernetes in production environments
• Infrastructure as Code (Terragrunt or Terraform and a willingness to learn)
• CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI or similar)
• Monitoring and logging tools (Datadog, ELK, etc.)
• Strong understanding of systems, networking, and debugging
• Experience and effective skillsets to streamline software development processes, from coding to production, automating using infrastructure as code to create efficient, scalable and secure systems.
• Be able to communicate complexity with brevity, clarity and precision. You stay calm in time-sensitive situations, make sound trade-offs, and improve systems and processes so the team experiences less firefighting over time.
• Strong self-management such as self-awareness, adaptability, positivity, self-motivation, holding yourself and team to high standards.
• Positive reaction to failure, calm and comfortable in chaos and under pressure while retaining importantly strong ethical standards.
• Best practice: Experience in implementing best practices such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), Test Driven Development (TDD) and continuous performance testing using open-source toolsets. Harden deployments for security and high availability by implementing best practice design principles.
• Experience in containerisation and orchestration tools such as Docker/Kubernetes
• Have a passion for building pragmatic technology solutions that focus on delivering the most value over time.
• Proven experience (min. 3 years) as a cloud engineer, solutions architect, or similar role, with hands-on experience designing, deploying, and managing cloud infrastructure in AWS.

Ideally will be a bonus if you have the following…

• Experience or knowledge of FluxCD, GitOps workflow, Appgate, MongoDB, Airflow (MWAA), Snowflake
• Experience in Apache Airflow (MWAA), AWS Backup and S3 versioning for business continuity.
• Programming experience in C#, Python and/or SQL
• Experience in Keycloak or other identity systems
• VPN/Secure network access tools (e.g. AppGate or similar)
• Database management experience (Postgres, MongoDB, performance tuning)
• Experience in designing and implementing disaster recovery and real-time business continuity solutions for cloud-based applications and services.

You will thrive in the role if you …

• Have a genuine love of the work — gets real satisfaction from solving hard problems. Motivated by the work itself, not the next rung on a ladder
• Work best in small teams with high levels of accountability and ownership
• Shine brightest when you see the positive impact of your work on others and the business
• Are proactive. You see what needs to be done and gets it done.
• Effective active listener. Holds space for other’s ideas, avoids listening purely to respond; listens without ego getting in the way.
• Excellent organisational and time keeping skills, working within a Kanban style structure
• Able to clearly establish priorities but remain adaptable in a constantly changing environment.

Personal Fit

Our values run deep. You can come from any background, but championing our culture is critical. We’re looking for a team member who:

• Shares our vision and embodies the Boba culture as a role model.
• Is looking for an organisation that puts its purpose at the heart of what it does.
• Is hungry to help build the company - a proactive and enthusiastic force to improve our capabilities.
• Loves technology and loves putting it to use in a pragmatic way.
• Has their finger on the pulse of latest information, ideas, and practices, and can transform these into tangible value for our team.
• Leads by first deeply understanding a problem and then leveraging their experience to work with the teams to find solutions.
• Has a keen interest and understanding in the wider technical landscape, regardless of our current tech stack; is intellectually curious.

What we can offer you

We are growing and adding to how we want to make Boba the best place to work on the planet and are always listening to what our team think we can do to achieve that. On top of a culture of personal growth, caring personally, inclusivity where your ideas are heard and often implemented, we can offer:

• Competitive annual salary plus annual discretionary performance bonus.
• Support from a professionally qualified Coach to help you achieve your personal and professional goals.
• Physical health allowance where we provide an allowance to each employee to use towards a physical activity of their choice (e.g., gym membership, Brazilian ju-jitsu, personal trainer, running club; pretty much anything as long as it gets you moving!)
• 39 days holiday, to be taken whenever you want subject to ensuring we have operational and trading coverage. We do not mandate you work public holidays nor do we mandate you must take them off, instead we recognise that UK bank holidays do not always align to important dates for everyone so give you the choice.
• Pension contribution.
• Income protection scheme and life insurance scheme.
• A book a month for personal development.
• Support to pursue professional certifications/qualifications.
• Fridge full of snacks and drinks (healthy and less-healthy options are available!)
• ‘Bobaversary’ recognition for reaching significant milestones in your career with us.

Other examples of situational/ad-hoc schemes we have run for our employees:

• Surprise and delight – we sent our people gifts from us during mandatory WFH periods, just to show we are thinking about them.
• Boba Social Events such as away weekends or team activities
• Social events & celebratory gifts for achieving team goals.

Why diversity and inclusion is highly important to us

An inclusive and diverse workplace means we highly value differences in race, gender, nationality, culture, sexual orientation, physical ability, cognition, age and background as these differences bring new or different ways of thinking about our work. Therefore, creating a workplace culture that advances belonging and psychological safety brings a mutual respect and acceptance of others and fuels our values of caring personally, adapting and evolving and the best ideas rising to the top.

If you have any questions about the process along the way, just email [email protected].

Good luck and we look forward to meeting you!