Job Title: Senior DevOps Engineer - Kubernetes & OpenLDAP

Location: London

Duration: 6 months

Job Description:

Senior DevOps Engineer - Kubernetes & OpenLDAP

Security Clearance (SC) required | NPPV3 eligible

Role Summary

Highly experienced DevOps engineer with deep expertise in Kubernetes platform engineering and OpenLDAP integration, operating at senior level. Responsible for designing, implementing, and leading secure, scalable containerised platforms within a regulated environment. Provides hands-on technical leadership while managing a small DevOps team delivering test-focused CI/CD capabilities.

Core Expertise (Heavy)

Kubernetes (Platform Engineering & Operations)

• Cluster design, provisioning, upgrade and life cycle management
• RBAC, network policies, pod security standards
• Ingress controllers, service mesh integration
• Multi-environment strategy (Dev/Test/Prod)
• Troubleshooting complex production issues
• Helm/Kustomize-based deployments
• Performance tuning and resilience engineering

OpenLDAP (Enterprise Identity Integration)

• Installation, configuration and hardening of OpenLDAP
• Schema design and directory structuring
• Secure authentication integration (LDAPS, certificates, RBAC mapping)
• Kubernetes authentication via LDAP
• Identity federation patterns across CI/CD tooling
• High availability and replication strategies
• Troubleshooting directory performance and sync issues

Jenkins (CI/CD Architecture & Engineering)

• Pipeline-as-code (Groovy)
• Shared libraries and pipeline governance
• Integration with Kubernetes agents
• Secure credential management
• Test automation integration
• Release orchestration

Strong Working Knowledge (Moderate)

• Docker - image optimisation, multi-stage builds, secure base images
• Python - automation, Scripting, infrastructure tooling

Working Knowledge (Light)

• AWS - IAM, networking concepts, container services
• Terraform - infrastructure-as-code principles, module consumption

Team Leadership

• Accountability for individual engineer performance, development and delivery
• Regular performance feedback and coaching
• Skills development and knowledge uplift within the team

Delivery & Governance

• Point of contact for DevOps-related requests
• Assist the tech lead with Technical design authority for incoming work
• Oversight and governance of Production releases
• Ensuring secure delivery aligned to SC-cleared environment requirements

Key Characteristics

• Operates independently within defined frameworks (SFIA Level 4)
• Provides technical leadership and direction
• Makes informed decisions in complex secure environments
• Strong stakeholder communication skills
• Security-first mindset suitable for government/regulated environments
• Other networking technologies"