Senior DevOps Engineer – AWS / Python / Terraform

Active SC or DV Clearance Required | Government Programme | Contract | Inside IR35

Location: UK – hybrid/remote working, subject to project and security requirements
Security Clearance: Current SC, enhanced SC or DV clearance is mandatory
Engagement: Contract – Inside IR35
Sector: Government / Defence / National Infrastructure

The opportunity

We are supporting a major secure government programme building modern cloud-native and AI-enabled digital capability within a highly technical AWS environment.

The team are looking for an experienced Senior DevOps Engineer with strong AWS, Terraform and CI/CD experience who is also comfortable working with Python.

This is not a purely infrastructure-support or systems-administration position. The role sits across DevOps automation, cloud engineering and software delivery, with engineers contributing to AWS platform capability, automated deployments, Python tooling and cloud-native services.

The role could suit either:

• An experienced AWS DevOps or Platform Engineer who regularly uses Python for automation, tooling or cloud services.

• A Python Software Engineer with strong hands-on experience across AWS, Terraform, CI/CD and containerised environments.

You do not need to come from a traditional software engineering background, but you must be able to demonstrate meaningful hands-on Python experience beyond very basic scripting.

What you’ll be doing

• Designing, building and automating secure AWS cloud environments.

• Developing Infrastructure as Code using Terraform.

• Building and improving CI/CD and automated deployment pipelines.

• Using Python to develop automation, engineering tooling and cloud-native components.

• Supporting the deployment and operation of Python services, APIs and backend applications.

• Working with serverless, microservices and event-driven AWS architectures.

• Building and supporting Docker-based and containerised services.

• Improving the reliability, scalability and resilience of cloud-hosted systems.

• Troubleshooting application, deployment and infrastructure issues.

• Working closely with software, platform, cloud and security engineers.

• Contributing to technical design, engineering standards and delivery quality.

• Operating within Agile engineering teams delivering secure digital services.

Essential experience

• Current active SC, enhanced SC or DV clearance.

• Strong hands-on AWS cloud engineering experience.

• Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.

• CI/CD pipeline development and deployment automation.

• Commercial Python experience across automation, tooling, scripting or application development.

• Docker and containerised environments.

• Experience supporting cloud-native applications, APIs, microservices or event-driven services.

• Git-based development and deployment workflows.

• Experience with tools such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Jenkins.

• Experience working within Agile engineering teams.

Particularly relevant AWS experience

Experience across some of the following would be highly beneficial:

• AWS Lambda

• ECS or EKS

• API Gateway

• SNS and SQS

• EventBridge

• IAM

• CloudWatch

• Serverless and event-driven architectures

Desirable experience

• Stronger Python backend development using FastAPI or Flask.

• Kubernetes or Amazon EKS.

• DevSecOps and secure-by-design engineering.

• Observability, monitoring and automated alerting.

• REST APIs and distributed systems.

• Ansible, CloudFormation or AWS CDK.

• AI or LLM integration.

• Previous delivery within government, defence or another highly regulated environment.

• AWS certifications.

The environment

This is a modern, fast-moving and highly collaborative engineering environment. The team work across software engineering, DevOps, platform engineering and cloud automation, with a strong focus on practical delivery, automation and engineering quality.

It is an excellent opportunity for a cleared DevOps or Platform Engineer who wants to work closer to application delivery, or a Python engineer who enjoys operating across both code and cloud infrastructure.

Clearance requirement

Applicants must already hold active SC, enhanced SC or DV clearance. Unfortunately, candidates who are only eligible for clearance or whose clearance has expired cannot be considered.

When applying, please include your current clearance level and a brief overview of your experience across Python, AWS, Terraform and CI/CD.

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