Freelance Principal DevOps Engineer - £day rate (outside IR35) London

Red Badger Consulting Limited • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • 1d ago

We recognise our people are the best thing about Red Badger and that a truly diverse workplace where people are free to be themselves is essential for great culture and great outcomes. If you like solving difficult problems, working with great people and making a real impact, join us and become a Badger.

At Red Badger, our purpose is to make a positive impact on the world around us. Our mission is to transform blue-chips into next generation digital product organisations.

We believe in creating opportunities for all. We benefit from diversity. That said, we're far from perfect - we want to be more diverse and representative. Join us and help make that happen.

Freelance Principal DevOps Engineer - £day rate (outside IR35)

London

Principal DevOps Engineer

Join a new discovery/greenfield project
Project is to build a new payments platform for a major bank
Strong focus on backend (Encryption, Terrafrom, Kotlin)
AWS and K8's experience is essential, Terraform and crossplane highly desirable
Experience with cloud infrastructure
Previous experience of influencing senior client stakeholders and support teams with technology and process enablers to support continuous delivery and DevOps ways of working
Experience with multiple programming languages, in web and/or mobile and multiple paradigms (e.g. declarative, functional, object oriented )
Duration 6 months (Likely to extend)
Immediate Interviews

Principal Software Engineer

The role

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our digital product delivery function.

Red Badger delivers high quality digital products using a lean delivery process and multidisciplinary, cross-functional teams.

The Principal Software Engineer is a senior technical leader with deep expertise in building and operating digital products, particularly within complex client environments and multi-team projects. This role is instrumental in shaping the technical direction of client engagements and plays a key part in delivering high-quality outcomes through strategic influence, hands-on support, and deep domain knowledge.

You will collaborate closely with Principal Product and Delivery roles, as well as Technical and Delivery Leads, to ensure that technology choices align with both client goals and Red Badger's value propositions. You will engage with senior stakeholders to consult and influence on topics such as technology adoption, continuous delivery, team structure, deployment strategy, and organisational policy. Your ability to guide clients through emerging technologies and industry best practice will help create the conditions for teams to succeed with autonomy and impact.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you elevate those around you by supercharging delivery teams, mentoring others, and embedding technical excellence at every level. You bring thought leadership, pragmatism, and curiosity to solving complex problems, and are trusted to represent Red Badger in high-level client conversations with confidence and clarity.

There is also an internal quality aspect to the role which involves contributing to the elevation of technical standards across Red Badger, and how we represent ourselves externally to the industry.

Hands-on work is expected to be the majority of the role - demonstrating by doing, but also be prepared to get involved in thought leadership, sharing your knowledge with other badgers, and high value consulting activities.

The Principal Software Engineer works across a range of account sizes but will be equally comfortable coordinating technology across a multi-team programme as they are providing high value consulting services to define client technology strategy or running proof of concept work streams for senior technology stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Supporting lean approach to software delivery and overall solution design and focus on delivering maximum value with minimal effort
Providing architectural framework and solution design
Advocating innovative approach / use of new technology where appropriate
Ensuring quality through coaching, pairing, reviewing code
Advocating for simplicity in design approach, ways of working and tool choice
Deep technical expertise and teaching mindset
Upskilling Red Badger software engineers in new technologies and approaches
Contributing to raising technology discipline standards within Red Badger
Collaborative leadership
Feed into account level technology leadership / governance
Contributing to the overall success of the Red Badger client engagement
Potentially leading multiple technology teams across a programme of work
Aligning Badger / client teams on appropriate processes & tooling
Consulting on areas of technology expertise
Contributing to new business pitches and thought leadership
Operating as trusted advisor consulting on client technology strategy, technology roadmap
Coaching senior client technology stakeholders
Industry focus
Keeping abreast of industry trends and opportunities
Thought leadership and continually evolving best practice
Organising and speaking at events / meetups
Supporting our team
Line management of senior engineering team members
Contributing to the technical discipline within Red Badger
Helping to build a high performing and motivated Badger engineering team

Your experience

It'd be great if you have
Experience in a consulting environment with client engagements
Ability to influence senior client stakeholders and support teams with technology and process enablers to support continuous delivery and DevOps ways of working
Experience with multiple programming languages, in web and/or mobile and multiple paradigms (e.g. declarative, functional, object oriented )
Experience with establishing good engineering practice focused on lean, cross-discipline, continuous delivery
Experience with cloud infrastructure such as Azure, GCP, AWS, and understanding of progressive ways of managing infrastructure, such as infrastructure-as-code, cluster orchestration tools (e.g. Docker, K8s),
Experience with setting up modern CI/CD pipelines to support continuous delivery and deployment and good understanding of the trade-offs (e.g. pipelines-as-code, monorepos, GitOps, branching and release strategies, etc.)
Experience in designing system-level architecture and navigating trade-offs in web based systems (e.g. Microservices, REST APIs, CQRS)
An understanding of information security including common attack vectors, awareness of relevant regulation and restrictions (e.g. PCI, GDPR )
Experience in design and testing strategies to enable gradual evolution of systems over time
Good understanding of data storage approaches and tools and trade-offs involved (RBDMSs, key-value stores, column stores, log storage, )
Good understanding of applying cryptography in software development (e.g. TLS, PKI, HMAC, hashing algorithms, etc.)
Good understanding of algorithms and data structures to solve distributed computing problems (e.g. content-based addressing, immutable data structures, CRDTs, consensus protocols, merkle DAGs, etc.
It'd be amazing if you can also
An understanding of information security including common attack vectors, awareness of relevant regulation and restrictions
Experience with running live services with significant volume of users and establishing appropriate SLOs and error budgets for services and applications
Experience designing observability strategies for systems with multiple components

Equal Opportunities

We respect and care for each other and strive for a truly diverse workplace where everyone has the freedom to be their authentic selves and feel safe.

Related Jobs

Android Engineer (Contract)

Two Circles • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • 19h ago

Engineer Outside IR35

6 month outside IR35 contract About Us As part of our exciting growth journey, we're expanding our Mobile Engineering team and are on the lookout for a talented Android Engineer to join us on a hybrid basis at our London...

19h ago

Apply

Sr Test Automation Engineer - Coda Financials/ERP Financials

TXP • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £35 / * • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Test Automation Engineer Hybrid working - Central London - 1 day per week onsite, rest remote working 6 months Market day rate - Outside IR35 An accomplished, UK based Automation Test Lead/Analyst with Coda Financials or...

1d ago

Apply

Sr Test Automation Engineer - Coda Financials/ERP Financials

TXP • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

1d ago

Apply

Staff Platform Engineer

Burns Sheehan • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Staff Platform Engineer - London - £600 - £800/day (OUTSIDE IR35) Are you a pragmatic and automation-focused Staff Platform Engineer with a passion for building reliable, scalable systems? Do you have strong communicatio...

1d ago

Apply

Senior Security Engineer Defender PurView Sentinel

Invitise Ltd • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £500 / * • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Were looking for a Senior Security Engineer for our growing, prestigious client in the data sector, based in London, on an initial 6 - 9 monthcontract basis paying market day rates depending on experience Outside IR35. T...

1d ago

Apply

Data Centre Engineer

Halian Technology Limited • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Data Centre Engineer - 3 Month Rolling Contract - Outside IR35 Location: Various sites around the M25 and surrounding areas Contract Duration - 3 month rolling contract Rate (TBC) Competitive rate + overtime for evening...

1d ago

Apply

Infrastructure Engineer - Oracle Cloud

JLA Resourcing Ltd • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £600 - £650 / * • 1d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Job Title: Senior Infrastructure Project Engineer Location: Remote Rate: £650 a day (Outside IR35) Contract: 6-8 weeks (immediate start required) The Opportunity: We're looking for an experienced Senior Infrastructure Pr...

1d ago

Apply

Network And Security Engineer - Palo Alto

aap3 • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £340 - £360 / * • 2d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Network and Security Engineer Outside IR35 Contract role - £360p/d Hybrid - Moorgate nearest tube Outside IR35 contract opportunity for a skilled Network and Security Engineer . In this role, you will be implementing, te...

2d ago

Apply

Software Engineer Node.js Typescript

Understanding Recruitment • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £375 / * • 2d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Software Engineer (Node.js / TypeScript) Contract Length: 3 Months (likely to extend) Location: Remote Day Rate: up to £375 (Outside IR35) Start Date: ASAP We're seeking an experienced Node.js / TypeScript Developer to s...

2d ago

Apply

Network/Sysadmin Engineer

Advanced Resource Managers Limited • TRAFFIC • London, Not Specified, United Kingdom • £450 - £500 / * • 3d ago

Engineer Outside IR35

Network/Sysadmin Engineer3-6 month initial contract4 Days per week on site in West London£Market Rate (Inside IR35) 5 Day working week 9:00-17:30 - Monday-Thursday on site - Some out of hours cover may be requiredVarious...

3d ago

Apply