DevOps Engineer

Job Title: GCP DevOps Engineer (Contract) – GKE Specialist Location: 1-2 days a week in Canary Wharf Contract Duration: 6 months, with potential extension Rate: [e.g. £543/day – Inside IR35 Start Date: [e.g. ASAP / Within 2 weeks] About the Role We are looking for a DevOps Engineer with deep expertise in GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) to join our engineering team on a contract basis. This hybrid role is based in London and will involve close collaboration with developers, platform engineers, and architects to deliver scalable, secure, and automated infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Key Responsibilities • Lead the design, implementation, and management of GKE-based Kubernetes clusters in production and non-production environments. • Develop and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform to provision GKE and related GCP resources. • Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for Kubernetes-based workloads using Cloud Build, GitLab CI, or Jenkins. • Manage deployment workflows including Helm, Kustomize, or GitOps tools (e.g., ArgoCD, Flux). • Implement best practices for cluster security, service mesh (e.g., Istio), autoscaling, node pools, and network policies. • Monitor and troubleshoot cluster performance using Cloud Operations, Prometheus/Grafana, and logging via Cloud Logging or ELK. • Work closely with application teams to containerize workloads, optimize Dockerfiles, and ensure production readiness. • Drive operational excellence in the Kubernetes platform with focus on high availability, cost efficiency, and resilience. Required Skills & Experience • Proven hands-on experience managing and scaling GKE clusters in production environments. • Solid understanding of Kubernetes architecture, RBAC, custom resources, and workload types. • Strong IaC skills with Terraform (GCP provider) for managing Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure. • Experience with CI/CD pipelines tailored for Kubernetes deployments. • Proficient with Docker, container lifecycle management, and image optimization. • Familiarity with networking, service mesh, ingress controllers, and internal load balancing in Kubernetes. • Competent in scripting with Bash, Python, or Go. • Knowledge of GCP services like Cloud Build, Cloud Storage, IAM, VPC, CloudSQL, etc. Nice to Have • Experience with GitOps tools like ArgoCD or Flux for managing Kubernetes manifests. • Familiarity with Istio, Anthos, or hybrid/multi-cluster Kubernetes setups. • GCP certifications (e.g., Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer, Professional Cloud Security Engineer). • Experience integrating with monitoring, alerting, and logging tools such as Datadog, ELK, or Sentry. Working Arrangements • Hybrid working: 2–3 days/week onsite at our London office, remainder remote. • Collaborative, fast-paced environment with Agile delivery model. • Contract position with competitive day rate depending on experience and IR35 status.