Senior Devops/Automation Engineer

Senior DevOps/Automation Engineer (IBM Z & Hybrid Platform)

Location: Remote
Contract: Initial 6 Months
Rate: £500-£550 per day
IR35: Inside IR35

We are seeking an experienced Senior DevOps/Automation Engineer to join a strategic automation and DevOps modernisation programme within a large, complex enterprise environment.

This role will focus on designing, developing and implementing production-grade automation solutions across IBM Z Mainframe and distributed platforms. You will work with modern DevOps technologies to build secure, resilient and scalable automation services, improve CI/CD capabilities, strengthen compliance controls and enhance operational observability.

The successful candidate will bring extensive enterprise DevOps experience, strong Python development skills and hands-on experience working within IBM Z environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop robust, production-ready automation using Python and YAML.
• Build and maintain enterprise automation workflows using Ansible Automation Platform (AAP).
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub and Jenkins, including Groovy-based pipeline development.
• Integrate automation across IBM Z, z/OS and distributed environments, supporting Mainframe workflows and batch processing.
• Design and implement REST API integrations and enterprise service interfaces.
• Develop Grafana dashboards and integrate monitoring, logging and metrics with enterprise observability platforms such as Splunk.
• Design and maintain PostgreSQL schemas for automation state management, execution history and audit evidence.
• Implement secure secrets management using HashiCorp Vault, applying least-privilege principles and secure credential handling.
• Manage artefact repositories using Nexus Repository or equivalent technologies.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Experience ofdemonstrable DevOps engineering, covering solution design, implementation, governance and engineering best practices.
• Experience working within an IBM Z environment.
• Strong hands-on Python development experience, including modular design, testing, logging and error handling.
• Extensive experience with Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) in enterprise environments.
• Strong Jenkins pipeline development experience, including Groovy.
• Practical experience with GitHub, Git workflows, CI/CD pipelines and release management.
• Experience with PostgreSQL, including schema design, query optimisation and operational data management.
• Hands-on experience with HashiCorp Vault and enterprise secrets management.
• Experience developing Grafana dashboards and working with monitoring and observability solutions.
• Experience with Nexus Repository or an equivalent artefact management platform.
• Familiarity with z/OS concepts, JCL and batch scheduling.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs, automation orchestration, operational resilience and failure handling

Desirable Skills

• Experience with IBM z/OSMF, zOAU and/or Zowe CLI.
• Familiarity with enterprise workload scheduling, including IWS patterns.
• Experience developing observability exporters, telemetry pipelines and automated compliance dashboards.
• Previous experience within regulated financial services or similarly controlled enterprise environments.