Specialist, DEVOPS Automation

Job description / Role

Employment: Full Time

Job Purpose

Build and setup new development tools and infrastructure utilizing knowledge in continuous integration, delivery, and deployment (CI/CD), cloud technologies, container orchestration, and security. Build and test end-to-end CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that systems are safe against security threats.

Deliver DevOps value by managing processes and procedures of DevOps, in addition to guiding the team of engineers/Senior Analysts to deliver DevOps automation solutions.

• Build end-to-end continuous integration and delivery pipelines.
• Work on ways to automate and improve development and release processes.
• Design and develop cloud automation solutions using automation and orchestration tools that satisfy business requirements for function, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Design and implement automated solutions for incident resolution by designing monitoring requirements.
• Ensure cloud orchestration and automation capability is operating based on target SLAs with minimal downtime.
• Define the standard operating procedure and guidelines to ensure all the operational procedures and mandatory checks are performed during deployment to product and other environments.
• Ensure all the deployment timelines are met and deployment scripts are in alignment with guidelines.
• Hold performance meetings to share performance and consumption data and trends. Communicate service delivery health to all stakeholders and explain any performance issues or risks.
• Oversee the installation and configuration of solutions, reusable components, translation of technical requirements and all stages of test data.
• Test and examine code written by others and analyze results.

• Spearhead testing, installation, and upgrade of DevOps solutions and services and ensure that the implementation is executed according to an agreed plan and time scale.
• Develop procedures required to carry out the installation/upgrade and keep them up to date.

• Implement, in consultation with section team members, logical access controls security to the various DevOps solutions and services by ensuring that users get access only to those functions/data required for their operations, in consultation with user departments.
• Supervise and control the provision of technical support to all users in diagnosing faults and malfunctions of any of the different DevOps solutions and services infrastructure and determine appropriate corrective actions.

• Participate in the implementation and testing of the contingency and disaster recovery plans to ensure continuous availability of the IT systems.
• Develop checkpoints, backup, and recovery procedures for use by operation staff and application development teams. Coordinate major recovery operations with users and other IT staff as appropriate.
• Develop, implement, and regularly test backup and recovery plans for all DevOps solutions and services infrastructure and related solutions.
• Assist in designing and maintaining the required continuity and recovery strategies for all DevOps solutions and services.

• Develop all standard operating procedures (SOPs) and system administration manuals related to the company systems design, systems and data centers administration, and security management activities.
• Plan domain activities to achieve the company business objectives regarding infrastructure operations for all current and future facilities and locations.
• Participate in the development of annual IT budgets by identifying company infrastructure administration operating costs and additional domain investment requirements.
• Plan and implement systems configuration changes in coordination with end users and other team members.
• Prepare, archive, and keep up-to-date technical and configuration documentation of all existing and future system administration and hosting management services.
• Perform systems capacity planning, performance monitoring, tuning, and optimization of the company systems and services.
• Collaborate with other IT groups to review requirements for all systems architecture and configuration changes.
• Participate in the group IT change control activities whenever required.

• Manage all company DevOps services security operations and controls. Monitor the systems access permissions and privileges as required and conduct regular access reviews as per the existing standards and procedures.
• Monitor DevOps solutions and services to ensure their availability, integrity, and security.
• Communicate with governance and operations teams to ensure DevOps solutions and services integrity and security.
• Assess existing and future information security solutions and their effectiveness in the protection of the company systems, services, and information assets.
• Constantly monitor the DevOps solutions and services and their stored data for security, integrity, and continuity issues.
• Coordinate with the IT governance personnel to establish and apply the DevOps solutions and services security architecture principles.
• Support the DevOps solutions and services network and database teams in their efforts to securely plan and deploy systems and tools.

• Monitor and report on the performance of the DevOps solutions and services. Regularly adjust configuration parameters to ensure adequate performance.
• Constantly evaluate the DevOps solutions and services related performance. Ensure the highest levels of availability and continuity of IT services.
• Analyze trends and report potential problems or areas of improvement wherever applicable.
• Evaluate, test, deploy, and maintain standard solutions for system monitoring, performance tuning, and management.
• Optimize the DevOps solutions and services performance in line with availability and performance targets and SLAs.
• Generate management reports on systems performance, utilization, and reliability on a regular basis.

• Participate in the development of the budget for the section by providing input on the cost estimates for infrastructure for the new DevOps solutions and services, annual maintenance costs for the existing infrastructure, etc.
• Participate in formulating annual maintenance contracts in respect of DevOps solutions and services and other IT equipment.
• Within the group digital and cybersecurity, ensure that any work carried out on company digital solutions will cause minimum disruption or downtime and will not adversely affect agreed service levels.
• Provide and control technical support for servers located on remote sites.

• Contribute toward and promote the protection of company IT assets and corporate information against threats to their security by implementing the company information security standards and all other related policies, regulations, and guidelines.
• Champion and provide outreach for DevOps practices and tools throughout the software engineering groups company-wide and work closely with development and application teams to implement best practices and automation.

• Plan, supervise, and coordinate all activities in the assigned area to meet functional objectives.
• Train and develop the assigned staff on relevant skills to enable them to become proficient on the job and deliver the respective section objectives.

• Provide input for preparation of the section/department budgets and assist in the implementation of the approved budget and work plans to deliver section objectives.
• Investigate and highlight any significant variances to support effective performance and cost control.

• Implement approved section/department policies, processes, systems, standards, and procedures in order to support execution of the section's/department work programs in line with company and international standards.

• Contribute to the achievement of the approved performance objectives for the section/department in line with the company performance framework.

• Design and implement new tools and techniques to improve the quality and efficiency of operational processes.
• Identify improvements in internal processes against best practices in pursuit of greater efficiency in line with applicable ISO standards in order to define intelligent solutions for issues confronting the function.

• Comply with relevant HSE policies, procedures, and controls and applicable legislation and sustainability guidelines in line with international standards, best practices, and company code of practices.

• Provide inputs to prepare section MIS and progress reports for company management.

Communications & Working Relationships

• Regular contacts with IT management team and end-users up to directors across the company on provision of IT solutions and services delivery.
• Frequent contact with program/project manager and enterprise architect on matters relating to creating synergies in the overall project portfolio, to define road maps, etc.
• Regular contact with the counterparts in group companies on intra-group coordination on IT related issues.

• Frequent contacts with group companies, internal/external auditors, local/international vendors, consultants, and IT professional organizations to facilitate quality and cost-effective service delivery.
• Occasional contacts with senior management of international oil companies for exchange of information, benchmarking, study visits, and training programs.
• Regular contacts with international IT service providers and telecommunication providers on matters related to IT services and strategic directions.

Qualifications, Experience, Knowledge & Skills

• Bachelor's degree in computer science (IT), computer engineering, electronics engineering, automation engineering, or a related technical field.

• 8 years of IT experience and a minimum of 3-5 years of experience as a DevOps engineer or a similar role.
• Strong experience in core infrastructure sectors such as oil and gas, power, telecom, transportation, manufacturing, etc.
• Good knowledge on CI/CD implementation on cloud-based and on-premises environment.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of setting up production, staging, and development environments on AWS, GCP, Azure, and OpenStack.

• Any professional certification would be a plus.

• Should have deep knowledge of working with a configuration management tool - Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or similar.
• Should have very solid developer experience in Terraform, Jenkins, or any other CI/CD tools.
• Automation exposure on public cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-premises.
• Experienced in implementing multi-cloud DevOps along with application development on cloud-native and on-premises.
• Strong experience in using DevOps CI/CD tool chain and integrating tool chains into CI/CD server using webhooks and APIs.
• Good experience in creating Kubernetes clusters, API servers, etc.
• Hands-on coding experience in Java, NodeJS, Perl, Python, and scripting languages Ruby, PowerShell, JSON, etc.

• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and organizational skills.
• Proven ability to form and maintain highly effective working relationships with all levels of seniority.
• Ability to work effectively in a team and with other groups.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills - must be able to communicate fluently in English both verbally and in writing.
• Detail-oriented - understands transactional activities sufficiently to help solve process performance problems and define actions to achieve performance improvement objectives.

About the Company

We are one of the world's leading energy producers, and a primary catalyst for Abu Dhabi’s growth and diversification.

We operate across the entire hydrocarbon value chain, through a network of fully-integrated businesses, with interests that range from exploration, production, storage, refining and distribution, to the development of a wide-range of petrochemical products.

Since 1971, we have created thousands of jobs, driven the growth of a diverse knowledge-based economy, and played a key role in Abu Dhabi’s global emergence.

Today, we continue to look for new and innovative ways to maximize the value of our resources, pioneering those approaches and technologies that will ensure we are able to meet the demands of an ever-changing energy market, and continue to have a positive impact on the Abu Dhabi economy for generations to come.

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