Lead DevOps Engineer

ABOUT US:

At Sportradar we’ve experienced a brilliant period of sustained growth through a highly focused strategy based upon industry-leading product innovation. To continue on this trajectory, we’re looking for an addition to a group of highly experienced engineers in a DevOps solution and technology team. Working closely with engineering teams to foster a strong culture of collaboration, system development lifecycles, and infrastructure as code practices. Develop and support high-quality digital solutions, with a focus on building operational awareness, supporting configuration management, and ensuring quality. Become integral to a team of software developers, test analysts, and product owners as part of the DevOps Practice.

Sportradar is a truly digital organisation with a very broad array of B2B applications and services. As we embark on a very exciting technical transformation with a focus on cloud migration and microservice architectures, it is a great time to join our team!

THE CHALLENGE:

As a Lead DevOps engineer, you’ll be an integral part of the success of the DevOps practice, providing technical mentorship, mastery in the DevOps toolchain and servant leadership to drive the success of our enablement strategy. This role requires exceptional leadership and management skills with a proven ability to drive successful DevOps outcomes. You will work closely with your designated departments, building relationships with key stakeholders and managing the flow of work such that our software delivery lifecycle is healthy and our squads and software engineers are able to self serve and concentrate on building business value.

There are several key challenge areas:

• Team Collaboration and Leadership: Leading a team of DevOps engineers spread across various locations and time zones offers a unique opportunity to foster collaboration and synergy through effective communication. As a Lead DevOps Engineer, your role will be to support and develop each team member, helping to cultivate a practice team that values trust, respect, and ongoing learning. Additionally, attracting and hiring top talent in the highly competitive technology landscape is crucial.
• Business Section Collaboration: The success of our DevOps practice hinges on the ability of our Lead Engineers to collaborate effectively with each assigned department, providing essential support to technical owners to ensure optimal DevOps results.
• Driving Business and Technology Objectives: As a DevOps lead, you will play an important role in aligning technology initiatives with the overall business strategy. This requires a deep understanding of business objectives and the ability to prioritize technology initiatives within each unit that drive business value for the whole company.
• Encouraging Continuous Improvement: Instilling a mindset of continuous improvement within our DevOps practice is crucial for staying ahead of evolving industry trends and maintaining a competitive edge. Your challenge will be to promote a culture of experimentation, feedback, and continuous learning throughout the organization.
• Technology Mastery: Making informed decisions about technology adoption, selecting suitable vendors, and evaluating third-party tools will be essential in enhancing the organization's technological capabilities. As a Lead DevOps Engineer, you will need to stay updated with industry trends and actively assess potential technologies that are likely to align best with the organization's needs.

ABOUT YOU:

• A proven track record of leading geographically distributed DevOps teams, with an ability to empower and support engineers while helping to foster a collaborative and innovative culture.
• Extensive experience and expertise in DevOps tooling and practices, demonstrated through successful design, implementation, and improvement of software delivery lifecycles for diverse products and services.
• In-depth knowledge of Kubernetes container orchestration and administration, enabling you to effectively deploy and manage applications in Kubernetes environments.
• Proficiency in serverless technologies, such as AWS Lambda or AWS Fargate, with a proven track record of designing and implementing serverless architectures. Your expertise in serverless computing will enable efficient and scalable solutions, reducing operational overhead and enhancing application performance.
• Substantial expertise in at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP), with a minimum of 5 years of hands-on experience, allowing you to make informed decisions and optimize cloud-based solutions.
• Extensive experience in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies and tools, such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible. Your proficiency in IaC will be instrumental in automating the provisioning and management of infrastructure, ensuring consistency, reproducibility, and scalability across complex environments.
• Proven experience in GNU/Linux OS administration, with a track record of managing production-grade services on Linux servers for minimum 10 years.
• A background in application development, technical architecture, or application support within an agile and continuous delivery environment.
• Strong expertise in observability practices, including the implementation of monitoring, logging, and tracing solutions. Your deep understanding of tools such as New Relic, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), and distributed tracing systems will enable comprehensive insights into system performance, application behaviour, and potential issues, allowing for proactive and data-driven decision-making.
• Strong expertise in designing and optimizing CI/CD pipelines, with a minimum of 5 years of hands-on experience, driving efficiency and quality throughout the software delivery process.
• Advanced scripting skills in languages like Bash, Python, Ruby, Go, or others, empowering you to automate processes and achieve reproducible results.
• A deep understanding of version control systems, particularly Git or GitLab, and how they contribute to efficient collaboration and version management in large-scale projects.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, allowing you to engage effectively with stakeholders at all levels, drive cross-functional collaboration, and present complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Proven capability in implementing and fostering agile practices across DevOps teams. Your expertise in agile methodologies will drive iterative and incremental improvements, facilitating rapid and adaptive responses to changing requirements.
• A collaborative, team-oriented mindset, with the ability to inspire and motivate individuals and foster a positive work environment.

OUR OFFER:

• A collaborative environment with colleagues from all over the world (Engineering offices in Europe, Asia and US).
• Ability to shape your own workday and career via a clearly defined professional and personal development plan.
• Opportunity to work with senior leadership team and develop yourself within an inspiring and fast-growing company.
• Vibrant and inclusive community, including Women in Tech and Pride groups which welcome all participants.
• Hybrid work model.

At Sportradar, we celebrate our diverse group of hardworking employees. Sportradar is committed to ensuring equal access to its programs, facilities, and employment opportunities. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. We encourage you to apply even if you only meet most of the requirements (but not 100% of the listed criteria) – we believe skills evolve over time. If you’re willing to learn and grow with us, we invite you to join our team!