Deputy Director Global DevOps CoE Technical

Overview

The DevSecOps CoE relies on a suite of internal tools and automation to govern the organisation's DevOps platforms at scale. This includes dashboards that surface platform health and usage, license consumption trackers, automated governance scripts that enforce controls across Azure DevOps and GitHub, and scheduled health checks that keep everything running cleanly.

This role owns all of that. You will be the engineering lead and people manager for a small team of 2–3 backend/automation engineers, responsible for the architecture, delivery, and ongoing operation of the CoE's internal tooling. You design the backend systems, set up and manage the hosting infrastructure, mentor your engineers, and ensure the team ships reliably against a clear roadmap.

This is a hands-on lead role — you are expected to contribute code, not just direct. You bring architecture thinking and engineering rigour to work that has historically been solved with ad hoc scripts, and you leave behind systems that are observable, maintainable, and actually documented.

Responsibilities

Backend Architecture & Engineering

• Design the backend architecture for all internal CoE applications — API layer, data models, scheduler/worker patterns, storage, and integration points with Azure DevOps, GitHub, and enterprise systems.
• Write and review production-quality code in Python (primary) and/or Go or similar — the team's tooling stack, not prototype scripts.
• Establish engineering standards: code structure, testing approach, review process, dependency management, and deployment patterns that your team follows consistently.
• Lead the migration of legacy scripts into structured, maintainable services — proper error handling, logging, retry logic, and operational visibility built in from the start.
• Integrate with DevOps platform APIs (Azure DevOps REST, GitHub API, webhook events) to power automation and data pipelines.

Infrastructure Setup & Ownership

• Set up and manage the hosting infrastructure for internal applications — containerised workloads on Azure (AKS / Container Apps / App Service as appropriate), with IaC from day one.
• Own infra-as-code for all CoE tooling using Terraform or Bicep — no manual portal deployments that can't be reproduced.
• Configure CI/CD pipelines for internal applications — the CoE's own tooling must meet the same pipeline standards it enforces elsewhere.
• Implement secrets management, RBAC, and network controls for hosted applications in line with enterprise security policy.
• Set up monitoring, logging, and alerting for the internal platform (Azure Monitor, Application Insights, or equivalent) so the team knows when things break before stakeholders do.

Team Leadership & Delivery

• Lead and manage a team of 2–3 automation/backend engineers — task allocation, unblocking, code review, and keeping delivery on track.
• Mentor engineers day-to-day: pair programming, design feedback, code reviews, and raising the bar on engineering quality over time.
• Run a lightweight delivery process: maintain a clear backlog, prioritise with the CoE leadership, and give honest status updates on what is shipping and what is at risk.
• Write and maintain work items: user stories, tasks, and acceptance criteria in Azure DevOps Boards that reflect what is actually being built and why.
• Be the technical point of contact for CoE internal tooling — fielding questions from platform teams, security, and stakeholders about what the automation does and how it works.

Governance Automation & Controls

• Automate policy enforcement across Azure DevOps and GitHub: branch protection, pipeline controls, access reviews, and repo hygiene checks.
• Build detection and alerting for governance drift — flag when a policy is missing, a control is bypassed, or a configuration deviates from standard.
• Support compliance and audit processes by generating evidence, access reports, and configuration snapshots on demand or on schedule.
• Collaborate with Security, Risk, and Architecture teams to translate control requirements into implementable automation — not just translating policy into manual tasks.

Qualifications

Experience & Qualifications:

• 12–14 years of hands-on experience in DevOps engineering, platform automation, or backend/systems development.
• Proven track record building and owning internal tools or platform applications — not just pipeline configurations.
• Experience leading a small engineering team, including task management, code review, and mentoring.
• Deep familiarity with both Azure DevOps and GitHub — admin-level understanding of both platforms, not just using them as a developer.
• Strong Python development skills — enough to design and build a backend service, not just write scripts.
• Hands-on IaC experience (Terraform preferred) with deployed, production Azure infrastructure.
• Experience with containerisation (Docker) and running workloads in Kubernetes or equivalent orchestration.

Preferred:

• Experience building automation or governance tooling specifically for Azure DevOps or GitHub at enterprise scale.
• Exposure to DevSecOps frameworks, policy-as-code, or compliance automation.
• Familiarity with license governance, tooling cost tracking, or software asset management.
• Cloud certifications (AZ-204, AZ-400, AZ-305, or equivalent) are a plus.