Head of DevOps
Location; Manchester
Location: Manchester | Full-time | Hybrid | £100,000
Our client is seeking a seasoned and visionary Head of DevOps to play a pivotal role within their engineering leadership team. This individual will be responsible for leading and developing a cross-functional group of specialists spanning DevOps, SRE, DBA, Platform and Network Engineering disciplines.
The ideal candidate will be a strategic leader with a track record of building high-performing teams, executing complex technical projects, and aligning infrastructure capabilities with broader business growth objectives. Deep expertise in Microsoft Azure and cloud-native architectures is essential, along with a passion for fostering a culture of ownership, innovation, and continuous improvement.
This role is ideal for someone who leads through influence, empowers teams, and is driven to make a meaningful impact on both technology and organizational culture.
Key Responsibilities
Operational Excellence
* Oversee the reliability, performance, and availability of the client's CCaaS platform through advanced monitoring, alerting, and incident response mechanisms.
* Ensure security, compliance, and infrastructure governance by enforcing best practices in configuration management and risk mitigation across cloud-hosted environments.
* Maintain and enhance FinOps practices to optimise Azure spend without compromising performance or scalability.
Platform Strategy
* Develop and implement a platform engineering strategy that aligns with the client’s product roadmap and long-term growth plans.
* Advocate for the adoption of cloud-native technologies, automation, and infrastructure-as-code to enable scalability, resilience, and operational efficiency.
* Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect platform health, team productivity, and delivery success.
Team Leadership
* Lead and mentor a multidisciplinary engineering team, creating a high-performance environment rooted in accountability, continuous learning, and team empowerment.
* Set clear expectations, manage performance, and support professional growth through coaching and regular reviews.
* Foster strong collaboration between platform and product engineering teams.
Project Delivery
* Drive the successful execution of major platform initiatives such as CI/CD enhancements, infrastructure modernisation, and observability improvements.
* Manage team capacity and prioritisation, balancing immediate delivery needs with long-term strategic planning.
* Contribute to commercial activities by providing work estimates and cost forecasts for sales-related technical initiatives.
Security & Compliance
* Integrate security best practices across all phases of the software development lifecycle, with an emphasis on secure-by-design and zero-trust principles.
* Work closely with compliance teams to uphold standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and GDPR.
* Ensure all infrastructure and platform processes support audit, regulatory, and data protection requirements.
Communication & Stakeholder Management
* Serve as a strategic advisor to internal stakeholders by translating technical challenges and opportunities into business-aligned insights.
* Clearly communicate the platform vision, updates, and risks to both technical and non-technical audiences.
* Maintain productive relationships with cloud providers, tooling vendors, and other external partners.
Experience Required
Essential:
* Demonstrated success in leading high-performing Platform Engineering, DevOps, or SRE teams within a SaaS environment.
* Extensive experience with Microsoft Azure services such as Azure Functions, AKS, Cosmos DB, Azure DevOps, and Terraform, as well as open-source technologies like PostgreSQL.
* Strong leadership and line management capabilities with proven experience in mentoring and performance development.
* Proven ability to design and manage secure, scalable, and cost-effective cloud platforms.
* Hands-on expertise in CI/CD pipeline development, infrastructure automation, and system observability.
* Strong knowledge of SRE principles and operational excellence methodologies.
* Experience embedding security and compliance into the SDLC (e.g., DevSecOps, Zero Trust frameworks).
* Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills with a business-aligned approach to technical leadership.
Benefits
* 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays), increasing up to 30 days with tenure
* Cycle to work scheme
* Birthday day off
* Pension plan
* Quarterly team socials and mixed team events
* Salary sacrifice matched to pension (NI contribution)
* Employee perks program
* Employee referral bonus
* Life insurance (4x salary, post-probation)
* An evolving range of benefits as the company grows
How to Apply? Deadline date for submissions: Tuesday 7th of July 2025
Please submit your resume and a reference detailing your experience and qualifications for the Head of DevOps position to;
Ben Trapnell – Recruitment Consultant, SR2 Socially Responsible Recruitment
Benjamin @ sr2rec.co.uk
07378547786