DevOps Engineer

DevOps Engineer – 12-Month FTC (SC Cleared) Location: Remote (UK-based) with ad hoc travel to London (approx. twice per month) Clearance: MUST hold active SC Clearance Contract: 12-Month Fixed-Term Contract About Amber Labs Amber Labs is a cutting-edge consultancy delivering data-driven, cloud-native, and digital transformation solutions for government and enterprise clients. We specialise in modern engineering practices and pride ourselves on our ability to deliver secure, scalable, high-impact technology outcomes. We are expanding our DevOps capability and are seeking a highly skilled DevOps Engineer with deep hands-on cloud experience, strong AWS fundamentals, and expertise in Kubernetes, Helm, and Terraform. Role Overview This role sits within a cloud-native delivery team responsible for building, deploying, and supporting production workloads on AWS using modern DevOps engineering practices. You will work in a highly technical environment, collaborating with engineers, architects, and delivery teams to design reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure. You must be an experienced problem-solver—comfortable navigating complex AWS environments, debugging production issues, and delivering high-quality infrastructure code. The role requires hands-on engineering, not theoretical knowledge. Key Responsibilities AWS Engineering • Design, deploy, and support production workloads using core AWS services including: EC2, VPC/Subnets, Security Groups, IAM, S3, CloudWatch, Load Balancers, Autoscaling, EKS/ECS, and Lambda. • Build scalable, secure cloud architectures following AWS best practices. • Troubleshoot real-world cloud issues including networking, permissions, logging, and performance. Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) • Write and maintain Terraform modules and reusable infrastructure patterns. • Manage Terraform state effectively and resolve state conflicts. • Review and troubleshoot Terraform plans and CI/CD pipeline failures. • Deliver IaC that is maintainable, version-controlled, and production-ready. Kubernetes & Helm • Deploy and manage workloads on EKS. • Build and maintain Helm charts for application deployments. • Manage cluster operations: RBAC, networking, scaling, upgrades, and security. • Diagnose pod failures, DNS issues, ingress problems, resource constraints, and deployment errors. Cloud-Native Troubleshooting • Investigate production issues across AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines. • Use CloudWatch logs, metrics, and alarms to diagnose issues. • Resolve IAM permission issues, network misconfigurations, and container runtime problems. • Support engineering teams by ensuring stable, reliable, and observable environments. Required Skills & Experience • Active SC Clearance (mandatory). • Extensive hands-on experience with AWS services in production environments. • Strong proficiency in Terraform, including module development and state management. • Production experience running workloads on Kubernetes (EKS) and building Helm charts. • Excellent troubleshooting skills across cloud networking, IAM, Kubernetes, containers, and IaC. • Ability to work autonomously and solve complex technical issues under pressure. • Comfortable contributing to cloud architecture, reliability, and DevOps best practices. Desirable Experience • Experience supporting secure or regulated environments. • Knowledge of CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins, etc.). • Understanding of cloud security best practices, container hardening, and least-privilege IAM. • Familiarity with cloud-native observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK). What We Offer • 12-month FTC with competitive salary. • Remote-first working with occasional travel to London. • Opportunity to work with experienced cloud, DevOps, and data engineering teams. • The chance to contribute to meaningful, high-impact digital transformation programmes.