Principal DevOps Engineer

Senior / Principal DevOps Engineer  | Onsite, Cape Town

About the Role

We’re looking for a highly skilled DevOps Engineer at senior or principal level to take ownership of infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and system reliability. This is a hands-on role where you’ll work closely with engineering leadership to design, optimize, and scale systems that power mission-critical applications.

If you enjoy solving complex problems, designing for high availability, and working in fast-moving environments, this opportunity offers the chance to shape and drive infrastructure in a business where technology is the core product.

Key Responsibilities

Infrastructure & Cloud Management

• Architect, manage, and optimize AWS environments (EC2, RDS, S3, VPC, Security Groups, IAM, etc.)
• Build systems that are secure, scalable, and cost-efficient
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting to maintain uptime and performance

CI/CD & Automation

• Design and manage CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar)
• Automate deployments across multiple environments
• Drive infrastructure as code, containerization, and automated processes

Application & Database Support

• Collaborate with PHP/Laravel engineers on performance and scalability
• Support GoLang applications with robust deployment and runtime stability
• Optimize databases (RDS MySQL/Aurora) for performance, replication, and failover

Quality, Reliability & Security

• Own QA testing pipelines (integration, regression, performance)
• Embed automated testing into CI/CD flows
• Lead disaster recovery planning, backups, and system hardening
• Enforce best practices around IAM, encryption, and secrets management

Collaboration & Leadership

• Partner with developers to resolve production issues quickly
• Mentor junior engineers and set DevOps best practices
• Drive a “you build it, you run it” culture of accountability

What We’re Looking For

• 10+ years’ proven DevOps / cloud engineering experience at scale
• Deep AWS expertise (EC2, RDS/Aurora, IAM, networking, cost optimization)
• Strong CI/CD knowledge (GitHub Actions or similar)
• Comfort working with PHP/Laravel and supporting GoLang deployments
• Database mastery (tuning, replication, optimization)
• Experience embedding QA and automated testing into pipelines
• A strong security-first mindset

Nice-to-Haves

• Docker, Kubernetes, or ECS experience
• Exposure to highly regulated or fintech environments (PCI DSS, GDPR)
• Familiarity with Terraform or CloudFormation

What’s on Offer

• A chance to own and shape infrastructure in a dynamic, high-growth environment
• Work onsite in Cape Town with a passionate, technically strong team
• Competitive compensation and opportunities for long-term career growth

For more information, contact me directly or apply below.