Senior DevOps Engineer

Farnell

Farnell, an Avnet company, is a global high-service distributor of technology products, services and solutions for electronic system design, maintenance and repair.

Job Summary

As a Senior DevOps Engineer, you will play a key role in transforming how we build, deploy, and operate our platforms. You will help modernise our CI/CD capabilities, support the migration to cloud-native architecture, and embed Agile and DevOps best practices across teams. This is a hands-on role with strong influence, combining deep technical expertise with collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement.

You will work closely with engineering, SRE, and product teams to improve delivery speed, reliability, and scalability across our transactional platforms and enterprise integrations.

Principal Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain robust, automated CI/CD pipelines to support frequent, reliable releases.
• Lead the evolution of build, deployment, and release tooling to improve quality, performance, and delivery efficiency.
• Partner with Agile Scrum teams to embed DevOps best practices across the full software development lifecycle.
• Drive automation across development, testing, and release processes with the long-term goal of enabling continuous deployment.
• Collaborate with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams to improve observability, diagnose performance issues, and enhance service reliability.
• Contribute to future technology direction and help guide the adoption of modern platforms and tools such as Docker, Kubernetes/OpenShift, AKS, Node.js, GraphQL, and Ansible.
• Play a key role in the migration of applications and services from on‑premise environments to Microsoft Azure.
• Define and implement infrastructure‑as‑code standards and patterns using tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• Build, deploy, and support applications within Java Enterprise environments using tools such as Git, Docker, Kubernetes, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Maven, and Ant.
• Support Java application platforms (e.g. IBM WebSphere or Oracle WebLogic) across both on‑premise and cloud environments.
• Work within Unix/Linux environments, including system administration and advanced scripting (bash, Python/Jython, Perl, YAML, awk).
• Communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders, influencing technical decisions and building strong cross‑functional relationships.
• Support the rollout of DevOps practices across additional platforms, including ERP and other critical enterprise systems.

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive hands‑on experience in DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering roles focused on application delivery, automation, and reliability in complex environments.
• Strong practical knowledge of Agile, DevOps, CI/CD, and site reliability engineering principles.
• Proven experience working with containerised and cloud-based platforms, ideally in Microsoft Azure.
• Solid background in Linux/Unix systems and automation-focused scripting.
• Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code and configuration management tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• Strong communicator who can influence, mentor, and collaborate across teams.
• Passion for automation, modern engineering practices, and continuous improvement.

Job Level & Impact

• Operates as a senior technical specialist with significant autonomy and influence.
• Solves complex technical challenges requiring deep analysis and judgement.
• Contributes to technical strategy and sets standards used by multiple teams.
• Acts as a mentor and escalation point for DevOps and platform-related topics.
• Decisions have a measurable impact on platform stability, delivery speed, and customer experience.

Experience & Education

• Typically 8+ years’ experience in DevOps, cloud engineering, or a related technical role.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Cloud and DevOps certifications are desirable but not essential.

Why This Role?

• Opportunity to influence large-scale cloud and DevOps transformation.
• Work with modern tooling and cloud-native platforms.
• High-impact role within a collaborative, engineering-focused culture.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed. They are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills.