Senior DevOps Engineer

About Project Marty

Project Marty is a self-service VM provisioning platform for RWS. It replaces manual, ticket-driven IT requests with a GitOps flow: a requester fills in a YAML spec, raises a pull request for lightweight approval, and on merge gets a fully built, domain-joined, security-tooled VM in around 15 minutes. No manual intervention.

It is built on AWS first, deliberately architected to extend to GCP and Azure, and to a backstage web front door, without rebuilding. The Terraform (infrastructure) and Ansible (configuration) pairing is the architectural heart of the platform.

This engagement covers Phase 1 (foundational AWS pipeline) and Phase 3 (Backstage integration).

The role

You are the Senior DevOps contractor on Marty – the technical anchor for delivery velocity and engineering patterns during the foundational phase. You will lead the build of the AWS pipeline, set the architectural conventions the rest of the platform inherits, and progressively hand ownership of the internal engineering team.

About Product & Technology

Product & Technology plays a pivotal role in aligning the organization with its strategic objectives and enhancing shareholder value. Product & Technology is responsible for establishing unified standards and governance practices throughout the company. Additionally, we oversee the development and maintenance of core applications essential for the seamless operation of various functions across the organization. We are committed to driving and executing future roadmaps that are in line with the overall strategic direction of RWS. 

With a global reach, Product & Technology provides support services to over 7500 end users worldwide. We take pride in managing the information security operation and safeguarding all our assets. Our core functions encompass Enterprise & Technical Architecture, Network & Voice, Infrastructure, Service Delivery, Service Operations, Data & Analytics, Security & Quality Compliance, Transformation, Application Development, Enterprise Platforms, With a dedicated team of over 500 staff, Product & Technology ensures a strong presence across all regions, enabling efficient and effective support to our global operations.

Key Responsibilities

· Lead delivery of the phase 1 AWS pipeline end to end: repo scaffolding, Terraform compute module, Ansible configuration, remote state, validation tooling and the provisioning workflow.

· Own the terraform and ansible design – the handoff between infrastructure provisioning and machine configuration – and keep every VM’s state declarative and reproducible.

· Build the GitOps flow on GitHub Actions, including OIDC-based, keyless authentication to AWS and least-privilege IAM.

· Implement full lifecycle management: TTL-based expiry and decommissioning, PR-driven resize and snapshot/restore.

· Expose the pipeline as a Backstage Software Template, and produce the JSON schema / documentation the backstage work depends on.

· Mentor and upskill the internal DevOps engineer; run structured knowledge transfer so the team can operate and extend the platform without your support.

· Coordinate with external dependency owners (Networking, AD/Identity, Security, Operations) to unblock delivery.

Skills & Experience

· Deep, hands-on infrastructure-as-code with Terraform and configuration management with Ansible – with fluency in the handoff between the two.

· A proven track record building end-to-end provisioning and lifecycle pipelines.

· Hands-on cloud engineering across compute, storage, IAM/identity and networking – preferably on AWS, or demonstrable equivalent depth on another hyperscaler.

· CI/CD as pipeline-as-code – GitHub Actions, OIDC federation.

· GitOps / PR-driven workflows as a default way of working.

· Deep Windows Server and Active Directory experience.

· Python for validation and tooling.

· Excellent written and spoken English, and effective collaboration in a distributed team.

· Genuine track record of mentoring engineers and transferring ownership.

Our purpose is to unlock global understanding. This means our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong. We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career. 

In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner, putting clients fist and winning together, to pioneer, innovating fearlessly and leading with vision and courage, to progress, aiming high and growing through actions and to deliver, owning the outcome and building trust with our colleagues and clients.

RWS embraces DEI and promotes equal opportunity, we are an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. RWS is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. RWS will not tolerate discrimination based on any of these characteristics. 

RWS Values 

Get the 3Ps right – Partner, Pioneer, Progress – and we´ll Deliver together as RWS.

Recruitment Agencies: RWS Holdings PLC does not accept agency resumes.  Please do not forward any unsolicited resumes to any RWS employees.  Any unsolicited resume received will be treated as the property of RWS and Terms & Conditions associated with the use of such resume will be considered null and void.