DevOps Lead / Senior DevOps Engineer

Location: Bristol (2-3 days per week on-site)

Up to £90,000 + Share Options

Early-stage AI start-up | Opportunity to build and lead a DevOps team | shape infrastructure

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a fast-moving, mission-driven company. As DevOps Lead / Senior DevOps Engineer, you’ll own and productise their AWS cloud platform, harden the security and observability, and evolve our infrastructure from dev-led to production-ready as they scale into beta and beyond.

This opportunity is ideal for a Senior DevOps Engineer ready to step up into a leadership role over the next year. It could also be a great fit if you’re already operating as a Lead Engineer but want greater ownership, influence, and autonomy in shaping the future of a growing platform.

Key Details:

This is a hands-on role with a clear path for progression into people/team leadership. You’ll take ownership of the infrastructure and delivery pipelines, ensuring the platform scales smoothly as the business grows. A key part of the role is balancing developer autonomy with robust security, making sure customer data is always protected. You’ll also work side-by-side with product-focused engineers, helping to shape features from an infrastructure perspective and guiding the team with best practices around scalability, reliability, and security.

Key Responsibilities of the Role:

• Take ownership of company's infrastructure and drive it forward
• Design, build, and maintain scalable infrastructure on AWS
• Implement and manage Kubernetes, Docker, and Serverless workloads
• Champion best practices around observability, reliability, and security
• Contribute to technical strategy as a senior/lead voice in the team

✅ What You’ll Bring:

• Strong, demonstrable background in AWS and modern DevOps tooling
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker and serverless patterns in production
• Proven experience building CI/CD pipelines and managing IaC (Terraform or similar)
• Track record of productising infrastructure and delivering reliable platforms
• Experience working closely with engineering teams to influence architecture and delivery
• Comfortable operating autonomously and driving technical decisions end-to-end
• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative, positive mindset

Bonus if you have:

• Worked in a start-up/scale-up enviornment
• Been a lead DevOps Engineer or taken charge of a company's infrastructure
• Taken a company through ISO27001 and/or equivalent certification

What’s on Offer

• Competitive salary up to £90k + share options
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays (buy/sell option)
• Flexible working with 2-3 days per week on-site in Bristol (central location)
• Flexible working hours and a supportive, high-impact culture
• Early opportunity to shape platform architecture and operational practices at an AI start-up founded by experienced builders
• Professional development, conference attendance and the chance to grow into a people-leadership role as we scale

Interview Process:

• Intro chat with the Engineering Lead
• Technical interview (practical/architecture discussion)
• Final in-person interview - meet the team & founders

Note: You need to live within a commutable distance of Bristol and be happy with hybrid working. Unfortunately, this role does not offer sponsorship.