DevOps Engineer – 12-Month FTC (SC Cleared)
Location: Remote (UK-based) with ad hoc travel to London (approx. twice per month)
Clearance: MUST hold active SC Clearance
Contract: 12-Month Fixed-Term Contract
About Amber Labs
Amber Labs is a cutting-edge consultancy delivering data-driven, cloud-native, and digital transformation solutions for government and enterprise clients. We specialise in modern engineering practices and pride ourselves on our ability to deliver secure, scalable, high-impact technology outcomes.
We are expanding our DevOps capability and are seeking a highly skilled DevOps Engineer with deep hands-on cloud experience, strong AWS fundamentals, and expertise in Kubernetes, Helm, and Terraform.
Role Overview
This role sits within a cloud-native delivery team responsible for building, deploying, and supporting production workloads on AWS using modern DevOps engineering practices. You will work in a highly technical environment, collaborating with engineers, architects, and delivery teams to design reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure.
You must be an experienced problem-solver—comfortable navigating complex AWS environments, debugging production issues, and delivering high-quality infrastructure code. The role requires hands-on engineering, not theoretical knowledge.
Key Responsibilities
AWS Engineering
* Design, deploy, and support production workloads using core AWS services including: EC2, VPC/Subnets, Security Groups, IAM, S3, CloudWatch, Load Balancers, Autoscaling, EKS/ECS, and Lambda.
* Build scalable, secure cloud architectures following AWS best practices.
* Troubleshoot real-world cloud issues including networking, permissions, logging, and performance.
Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
* Write and maintain Terraform modules and reusable infrastructure patterns.
* Manage Terraform state effectively and resolve state conflicts.
* Review and troubleshoot Terraform plans and CI/CD pipeline failures.
* Deliver IaC that is maintainable, version-controlled, and production-ready.
Kubernetes & Helm
* Deploy and manage workloads on EKS.
* Build and maintain Helm charts for application deployments.
* Manage cluster operations: RBAC, networking, scaling, upgrades, and security.
* Diagnose pod failures, DNS issues, ingress problems, resource constraints, and deployment errors.
Cloud-Native Troubleshooting
* Investigate production issues across AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines.
* Use CloudWatch logs, metrics, and alarms to diagnose issues.
* Resolve IAM permission issues, network misconfigurations, and container runtime problems.
* Support engineering teams by ensuring stable, reliable, and observable environments.
Required Skills & Experience
* Active SC Clearance (mandatory).
* Extensive hands-on experience with AWS services in production environments.
* Strong proficiency in Terraform, including module development and state management.
* Production experience running workloads on Kubernetes (EKS) and building Helm charts.
* Excellent troubleshooting skills across cloud networking, IAM, Kubernetes, containers, and IaC.
* Ability to work autonomously and solve complex technical issues under pressure.
* Comfortable contributing to cloud architecture, reliability, and DevOps best practices.
Desirable Experience
* Experience supporting secure or regulated environments.
* Knowledge of CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins, etc.).
* Understanding of cloud security best practices, container hardening, and least-privilege IAM.
* Familiarity with cloud-native observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).
What We Offer
* 12-month FTC with competitive salary.
* Remote-first working with occasional travel to London.
* Opportunity to work with experienced cloud, DevOps, and data engineering teams.
* The chance to contribute to meaningful, high-impact digital transformation programmes.