Lead Platform DevOps Engineer

Lead Platform/Devops Engineer Location: Dublin 2 Working Pattern: Four days per week on-site Salary: €80,000 to €90,000 The Opportunity This is not a traditional DevOps role. We are working with an Irish technology startup that has built a platform used by enterprise customers across major data centre, pharmaceutical and infrastructure projects. The product has achieved strong commercial traction, but it was built at pace to reach product-market fit. The next stage is about strengthening the technical foundations, improving how engineers build and release software, and preparing the platform for continued growth. You will join a 14-person strong engineering function and take ownership of the company's platform engineering capability. The role sits between infrastructure and software engineering. You will design reusable platform capabilities, improve developer experience and work directly alongside feature teams, while remaining highly hands-on. This could suit an experienced Platform Engineer, Lead DevOps Engineer, Technical Lead or Senior Software Engineer who wants greater ownership and the opportunity to build a team. What You'll Do Design and evolve the company's AWS platform Own areas including ECS, VPC networking, IAM, public and private subnets, cloud security and reliability Build and improve infrastructure using Terraform and Infrastructure as Code Standardise environments, deployment processes and shared platform capabilities Improve CI/CD using Azure DevOps and ArgoCD Develop internal tools, platform APIs, reusable libraries and engineering frameworks Improve developer experience across the wider engineering team Strengthen observability using Grafana and Prometheus Support incident response and improve long-term platform resilience Work closely with .NET engineering teams on shared technical challenges Help the business make pragmatic decisions around architecture and future platform decomposition Mentor and manage the existing DevOps Engineer Help recruit and develop the platform team as the company grows Establish shared engineering standards across infrastructure and application development The Current Challenge The existing platform works, has paying customers and continues to grow. Its current architecture has been described as a distributed monolith, with microservices implemented inconsistently across parts of the product. The company is not planning an immediate rewrite. The priority is to understand the existing environment, improve engineering practices and introduce stronger foundations without disrupting customers. Larger architectural changes will follow once the new engineering structure is established. This requires someone pragmatic. You should be capable of recognising where change is needed without introducing unnecessary complexity or rewriting working systems for the sake of it. What You'll Bring Strong hands-on experience with AWS in production environments Good knowledge of Terraform and Infrastructure as Code Experience designing cloud networking, security and deployment environments A strong understanding of software engineering as well as infrastructure The ability to write code and work alongside application engineering teams Experience with C# and .NET environments, or a clear track record of learning new languages and technologies quickly Experience improving CI/CD, observability, developer tooling or internal platforms A practical understanding of system design, scalability and reliability Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical projects Strong communication and the ability to work across engineering teams A willingness to remain highly technical and hands-on The Type of Person Who Will Succeed You will enjoy building rather than simply maintaining. You will be curious, comfortable with ambiguity and prepared to take ownership without waiting for every decision to be made for you. You will be equally comfortable discussing AWS architecture, reviewing application code, improving a deployment pipeline or helping another engineer solve a problem. The position will initially be approximately 80% to 90% hands-on, with responsibility for one direct report. The management element and wider platform team will grow over time. Why Join? Build the platform engineering capability around an established product Influence engineering standards across the entire company Work directly with the Head of Engineering Take real ownership of AWS architecture, developer experience and platform reliability Join a startup with paying enterprise customers and proven commercial demand Build and lead a team as the company grows Play a central role in future architectural decisions Interview Process The process is expected to include: An initial 30 to 45-minute conversation covering your background, motivations and experience working in startup or scale-up environments A 90-minute technical interview covering AWS, platform architecture, infrastructure, scalability, system design, leadership and cross-team collaboration A possible final conversation depending on the stage of the process Applicants must be comfortable working from the Dublin 2 office four days per week. How to Apply To apply for this role, submit your CV via the application form provided. Alternatively, to speak in absolute confidence about this opportunity, please contact Jack Tyrrell via j.tyrrell@mcsgroup.jobs Disclaimer If you have a disability which means you require assistance at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact us directly to discuss. We are committed to providing equality of opportunity to all. Please note, we are receiving an exceptionally high number of applications at present and will be unable to shortlist candidates who are not meeting the specific requirements for this role. Due to the high volume of applications, we may be unable to provide individual feedback. We thank you in advance for your understanding.