Principal Platform & DevOps Engineer

About Zinkworks

Zinkworks partners with leading Telecommunications and Financial Services organizations to modernize legacy systems, migrate mission-critical platforms to the cloud, and engineer AI-driven automation. From OSS transformation to rApp development and network intelligence, our teams simplify complexity and turn it into competitive advantage. Based in Ireland and operating across the EU, UK, and US, Zinkworks combines deep domain expertise with delivery excellence to help clients modernize faster and operate smarter.

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Principal Platform & DevOps Engineer to lead the evolution of enterprise automation and platform engineering standards. This role will drive DevSecOps adoption across vendors and internal delivery squads, establishing a unified, “gold standard” engineering framework that accelerates delivery while ensuring alignment with Enterprise Architecture principles.

This is a strategic leadership role requiring deep Linux expertise, strong architectural capability, and a proven track record in large-scale transformation environments.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Platform Governance

• DevSecOps Adoption: Drive the adoption of release management best practices, secure software development standards, and DevSecOps methodologies across vendors and internal delivery teams.

• Platform Engineering Standards: Define, implement and champion “gold standard” platform engineering principles across automation platforms and infrastructure domains.

• Framework Development: Design and establish a scalable DevSecOps framework using industry-recognised tooling to standardise and accelerate delivery across multiple vendors and squads.

• Architectural Ownership: Produce and own High-Level Designs (HLDs) for automation and platform solutions, ensuring strict adherence to enterprise architecture guidelines.

• Solution Leadership: Lead requirements gathering, proof-of-concept initiatives, technology evaluations, and datacentre consolidation programmes.

Technical Execution & Engineering Excellence

• Linux & Infrastructure Expertise: Act as Subject Matter Expert for RHEL and CentOS environments, ensuring stability, security, and optimisation of enterprise Linux platforms and automation systems.

• Containerisation & Orchestration: Design, build and maintain scalable CI/CD and continuous deployment environments using Red Hat OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Docker. Manage microservices lifecycle through Helm and container orchestration best practices.

• Automation & Scripting: Develop advanced automation capabilities using Python and expert-level Shell scripting to support infrastructure provisioning, migrations, and hardware-level automation.

• CI/CD Engineering: Architect and optimise secure, resilient deployment pipelines using GitLab, embedding DevOps best practices across the full software delivery lifecycle.

Experience & Expertise

• Extensive Industry Experience: 10+ years’ experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, or IT Infrastructure roles, ideally within large-scale or high-availability Telecommunications environments.

• Transformation Leadership: Proven experience leading Unix/Linux transformation programmes, server consolidations, and migration of legacy workloads to modern, cloud-native platforms.

• Vendor & Stakeholder Management: Demonstrated ability to collaborate with third-party vendors on support, defect resolution, roadmap alignment, and platform governance.

• Agile Delivery: Strong working knowledge of Agile methodologies, with hands-on experience using the Atlassian toolset (Jira and Confluence) for sprint management and technical documentation.

Inclusion & Diversity at Zinkworks

At Zinkworks, we are deeply committed to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging. We believe that our strength lies in the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of our team members. By embracing an inclusive environment, we empower innovation and collaboration across all levels of our organisation. Based in Ireland, we are proud to support and engage with our local communities through meaningful initiatives that promote equity and opportunity. Our commitment extends beyond the workplace, as we actively contribute to creating a more inclusive and connected society for all.