Zapalean

We are looking for a Senior DevOps Engineer with strong AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, database, and infrastructure security experience to work with our fintech client.

The engineer should be able to independently own infrastructure projects, make technical decisions, communicate directly with client teams, and support the professional growth of other team members.

This is a hourly contractor role

Responsibilities

• Own infrastructure projects from technical design through implementation and production rollout.
• Design, automate, and maintain AWS infrastructure using Terraform.
• Develop and improve CI/CD pipelines.
• Maintain development, staging, and production environments.
• Operate, upgrade, and troubleshoot Kubernetes clusters, primarily AWS EKS.
• Maintain and troubleshoot database infrastructure, backups, replication, performance, and high-availability configurations.
• Implement infrastructure security best practices, access controls, secrets management, vulnerability monitoring, and security remediation.
• Implement and improve monitoring, logging, alerting, and observability.
• Participate in production incident response, root cause analysis, and preventive improvements.
• Review infrastructure changes and provide technical guidance to other engineers.
• Create and maintain clear technical and operational documentation.
• Communicate infrastructure changes, risks, incidents, and recommendations to client teams.

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional experience in DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineering, or a similar role.
• Strong hands-on experience with production AWS environments.
• Strong experience with Terraform and infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Production experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience managing and troubleshooting AWS EKS clusters.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Jenkins
• Strong Linux administration and troubleshooting skills.
• Scripting experience with Bash or Python.
• Practical experience with relational and NoSQL databases, including services such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, RDS, Aurora, MongoDB, or Redis.
• Understanding of database backups, replication, failover, migrations, performance monitoring, and high availability.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure and cloud security principles.
• Experience with AWS IAM, secrets management, encryption, network security, vulnerability remediation, and least-privilege access.
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, OpenTelemetry, or similar.
• Strong networking knowledge, including VPC, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, SSL/TLS, TCP/IP, load balancers, firewalls, and VPNs.
• Experience with Git-based development and infrastructure change workflows.
• Understanding of SDLC, release management, incident management, and production change management.
• Ability to independently plan, own, and deliver technical projects.
• Experience reviewing work, mentoring engineers, and helping other team members grow.
• Written and verbal English communication skills, as the role involves regular collaboration with development teams.

Nice to Have

• AWS certifications such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or Security Specialty.
• Kubernetes certifications such as CKA, CKAD, or CKS.
• Terraform Associate certification.
• Experience working in fintech or other regulated environments.
• Knowledge of PCI DSS, SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, or similar security and compliance frameworks.
• Experience with Terragrunt and multi-account or multi-region AWS environments.
• Experience with AWS security services such as GuardDuty, Security Hub, WAF, Inspector, Config, and CloudTrail.

• Experience leading infrastructure migrations, disaster recovery, high-availability, or cost-optimisation projects.

   

Engagement

• Full-time contractor.
• Long-term engagement.
• Remote work.
• Direct collaboration with the client’s engineering teams.