Senior DevOps Engineer
Pacific Life · London, United Kingdom · 9d ago
Job Title
Senior DevOps EngineerJob Description
The Role
Following extensive global expansion over several years and a drive to standardise common systems and platforms globally, PL Re is undertaking a major back-office transformation programme and has established a Divisional Data Team to develop and manage an enterprise-wide data solution, reporting services and to embed best practice data governance.
We are looking to appoint a DevOps Senior to contribute towards the DevOps function within the Divisional Data Team (DDT). DevOps is the highest-risk pillar of the data engineering operating model, owning CI/CD, database change management, environment control, release management and platform access. The role holder will be the single point of accountability for how change moves safely from an engineer’s branch into production.
The role reports to the AVP, Data Engineering, who is responsible for prioritizing, planning and driving forward the data engineering and transformation activities required. The role holder will build close working relationships with data engineering, testing, reporting, architecture and IT infrastructure teams across our operating geographies, and will be responsible for ensuring releases are controlled, auditable and repeatable.
Core Responsibilities
Azure DevOps platform ownership
• Own the Azure DevOps organisation and project configuration for the Divisional Data Team, including projects, teams, security groups, service connections, variable groups and secure files.
• Administer permissions and access models across repositories, pipelines, artefacts and libraries, ensuring segregation of duties between engineers, reviewers and approvers.
• Manage build agents (including self-hosted agent pools), agent capacity, scaling and patching.
• Use Azure Boards to plan, track and report DevOps work, and integrate work items with commits, pull requests and releases for traceability.
• Manage Azure Artifacts feeds, package versioning and retention policies.
Git branching strategy and standards
• Define, document and enforce the branching strategy across all repositories (for example trunk-based or GitFlow-style dev/SIT/UAT/production branches), including naming conventions and promotion paths.
• Set and maintain branch policies: required reviewers, minimum approvals, linked work items, build validation, comment resolution and merge strategy (squash, rebase or merge commit).
• Own the pull request process — review quality standards, approval routing, and clear rules on who may approve changes to which repository.
• Define the release branching, tagging and versioning model, and the process for hotfixes and emergency fixes.
• Own merge conflict resolution guidance, rebase and cherry-pick standards, and rollback procedures.
Git repository management
• Create, structure and maintain repositories; define repository standards, folder structures, README and documentation requirements.
• Manage repository security, path-based policies, protected branches, forks and cross-repository dependencies.
• Implement and maintain pre-commit and pre-merge quality gates, including linting, formatting and automated tests.
• Manage repository hygiene: history management, large file handling, retention, archiving and repository migration where required.
• Ensure no secrets or credentials are committed to source control, supported by scanning and remediation processes.
Deployment and CI/CD
• Design, build and maintain CI/CD pipelines (YAML-based) for Snowflake SQL, dbt models, Streamlit applications, stored procedures and supporting scripts.
• Own database change management (DCM), including the transition to and operation of a state-based deployment approach across development, SIT, UAT and production.
• Maintain consistent, reproducible environments and infrastructure-as-code, including configuration management across environments.
• Implement automated testing, deployment gates, approvals and post-deployment validation within pipelines.
• Ensure reliable rollback and recovery mechanisms for failed deployments.
Release management
• Own the end-to-end release calendar and release process for the data platform, coordinating with delivery, testing and business stakeholders.
• Chair or represent the team at change advisory and release approval forums; prepare and submit change records (including ECRs) with appropriate evidence.
• Manage release readiness: entry and exit criteria, environment lock-downs, dependency management and go/no-go decisions.
• Maintain a complete and auditable release trail linking requirements, code, approvals and deployments to satisfy internal control and audit requirements.
• Conduct post-implementation reviews and drive continuous improvement in deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate and time to restore.
Security, access and compliance
• Own role-based access control (RBAC) design and administration across Snowflake and Azure DevOps, including role hierarchy, secrets management and privileged access.
• Implement and maintain data masking and PII controls, with documented approvals for access to sensitive data.
• Manage certificate renewals, artefact repository configuration and remediation of security scanning findings (for example Snyk and SonarQube).
• Ensure IT controls and Business Control compliance requirements are embedded within the delivery and release process.
Qualifications & Experience
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Azure DevOps — Repos, Pipelines (YAML), Boards, Artifacts, self-hosted agents and service connections.
• Expert-level Git: branching strategies, branch policies, pull request workflows, tagging and versioning, merge and rebase, cherry-picking and rollback.
• Strong track record of designing and running automated deployment pipelines into production in a controlled, audited environment.
• Demonstrable release management experience, including change control, release governance and stakeholder coordination.
• Experience of database change management tooling and state-based deployment approaches.
• Strong working knowledge of Snowflake administration, RBAC, masking policies and cost/performance optimisation.
• Experience with dbt and SQL in a modern cloud data warehouse environment.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code, scripting (for example PowerShell, Bash or Python) and monitoring/alerting tooling.
• Understanding of networking, certificates and security scanning tooling is an advantage.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, enabling effective collaboration with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Knowledge of reinsurance or insurance industry concepts is a bonus.
Technologies
• Azure DevOps (Repos, Pipelines, Boards, Artifacts)
• Git
• Snowflake
• dbt
• SQL
• Database change management (DCM) tooling
• Infrastructure-as-code and scripting
• SonarQube / Snyk or equivalent code and dependency scanning
Key Skills & Behaviours
• Demonstrates an appropriate level of technical skill for the role and an appreciation of current issues affecting their profession and the life reinsurance industry.
• Takes responsibility for the quality, completeness and accuracy of own work and that of the team under them.
• Able to prioritise competing requests and deadlines.
• Provides accurate and timely updates on status of work and escalates issues appropriately.
• Committed to being an open and fair team member who shares information, knowledge and experience openly.
• Communicates in a clear and practical manner both verbally and in writing, without over-reliance on technical language.
• Challenges the status quo and is not limited by historical thinking or embedded practices; critically evaluates and challenges current work practices.
• Embraces change and can work in a fluid environment with challenging deadlines: able to be flexible and resourceful.
• Team player: able to work with people with a diverse range of skills and experiences and get the best out of every individual.
• Agile approach to projects; able to demonstrate the ability to think ahead and always focus on the end goal.
Working For Pacific Life Re
Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step. Of course, we take our work seriously and we know our team can operate under great pressure. We work hard and thrive on achievement, but we also know how to have fun and relax too. We regularly host a range of team building days to strengthen our team's connection with each other and reflect on their successes.
Providing employees with a healthy work-life balance is very important to our culture. We have a wide range of employee benefits and we host regular social activities and well being initiatives. We are also committed to supporting our employee's involvement in their communities, by actively fundraising, hosting charity events and overseeing volunteering opportunities.
Benefits (Only for Permanent and Fixed Term Employees)
Leave
25 days of annual leave with option to buy/sell more days
Adoption and fertility leave
Generous enhanced parental leave
Healthcare
Comprehensive private insurance coverage for employee and dependents
Group Life Insurance coverage of 9x basic annual salary and Group Income Protection up to 75% of basic annual salary
Optical benefits
Savings & Retirement
15% combined employee/employer contributions
Wellness
Subsidized gym membership
Access to Employee Assistance Program
Cycle to Work and Electric Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme
Time off for volunteering
Charitable matching of employee donations
You Can Be Who You Are
We are committed to a culture of diversity and inclusion that embraces the authenticity of all employees, partners and communities. We support all employees to thrive and achieve their fullest potential.
As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we will provide reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process to ensure equal access to applicants with disabilities. Please contact us about your needs so that we can discuss these with you to make sure that suitable adjustments are made, where possible.
Pacific Life Re Values