Senior Systems Engineer (Operational Technology)

Primary Position Objective

The Senior Systems Engineer (Operational Technology) is responsible for designing, deploying, automating and operating the infrastructure and software delivery foundations that support industrial data platforms, OT applications and digital manufacturing solutions across manufacturing sites. The role provides deep software-platform, DevOps and infrastructure capability to complement the Operational Technology team’s domain knowledge. It owns the reliable and secure operation of Linux and Windows servers, virtual infrastructure, Kubernetes, container platforms, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, observability, backup and recovery, and platform lifecycle management. Working closely with the Platform Product Owner and OT/Application Engineering teams, the role translates platform requirements into reusable deployment patterns and operational standards, enabling the Product Owner to focus on product strategy, OT architecture, application use cases, data contextualisation, governance and site standardisation.

Responsibilities and Accountabilities

The role is the technical owner for DevOps, infrastructure engineering and platform reliability for the Industrial Data Platform ecosystem.

Infrastructure and Platform Operations

• Design, deploy, document and maintain Linux and Windows server infrastructure for industrial platforms and OT applications.

• Manage physical, virtual, edge and cloud-hosted environments, including environment build standards and lifecycle plans.

• Design resilient and highly available architectures for critical services, including backup, restore and disaster recovery.

• Perform capacity planning, performance tuning, patching, upgrades and infrastructure optimisation.

• Maintain infrastructure architecture diagrams, build records, operational runbooks and support documentation.

Kubernetes and Container Platforms

• Deploy, administer and upgrade Kubernetes clusters used for edge and central platform workloads.

• Operate containerised workloads including industrial data platforms, custom applications, analytics services and AI workloads.

• Manage container images, registries, Helm-based deployment packages, ingress, certificates and service networking.

• Define reusable edge-to-cloud deployment patterns and container platform standards.

• Implement secure secrets, configuration and environment management practices.

DevOps, GitOps and Automation

• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for platform and application deployment.

• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration automation using appropriate enterprise tooling.

• Maintain Git repositories, branching conventions, release management and artefact versioning.

• Establish repeatable deployment, validation, rollback and recovery procedures.

• Create reusable templates and automated workflows that allow solutions to scale consistently across sites.

Virtualisation and Infrastructure Provisioning

• Administer VMware environments and provision, configure and maintain virtual machines.

• Manage compute, memory, storage and network resource allocation based on workload requirements.

• Own operating system baselines, patching, hardening and lifecycle management.

• Coordinate infrastructure dependencies with enterprise technology, networking and cybersecurity teams.

Platform Reliability and Operations

• Implement system health monitoring, alerting, metrics, logging and operational dashboards.

• Define and monitor service availability, reliability objectives and platform support measures.

• Lead technical troubleshooting, incident response, root cause analysis and preventive actions.

• Maintain support procedures, escalation paths and operational readiness criteria for production releases.

• Drive continuous improvement in stability, maintainability and operational efficiency.

Industrial Data Platform Infrastructure Support

• Operate the infrastructure layer supporting approved industrial data platform components and services.

• Support MQTT brokers, Unified Namespace services, Kafka and other data transport components.

• Enable secure and reliable hosting of containerised analytics, integration and AI applications.

• Partner with OT and application engineers on deployment requirements while retaining ownership of the underlying platform and release mechanisms.

• Support multi-site rollout, platform upgrades and standardised environment onboarding.

Cybersecurity, Governance and Documentation

• Implement access controls, certificate management, audit logging, vulnerability remediation and platform hardening.

• Align platform designs and operational controls with corporate cybersecurity requirements and applicable OT security principles.

• Maintain configuration inventories, dependency records, recovery procedures and evidence required for audits.

• Contribute to architecture reviews, change control, risk assessments and production-readiness reviews.

Collaboration and Role Boundaries

• Work with the Platform Product Owner to convert roadmap priorities and application requirements into scalable technical platform capabilities.

• Provide infrastructure and DevOps guidance to OT, application, data and site engineering teams.

• Own how platforms are deployed and operated, while the Platform Product Owner and OT/Application teams own product direction, OT standards, use-case prioritisation, data models and application requirements.

• Transfer knowledge through clear documentation, coaching and reusable engineering standards.

Qualifications and Experience

Required

• Formal qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Infrastructure Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering or a comparable production support role.

• Strong Linux administration skills and working knowledge of Windows Server environments.

• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Helm and production container platforms.

• Experience creating and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or equivalent tooling.

• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation tools such as Terraform, Ansible or equivalent.

• Experience administering VMware and provisioning virtual infrastructure.

• Working knowledge of networking, DNS, load balancing, firewalls, TLS certificates, identity and access controls.

• Experience with monitoring, alerting and logging technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack or equivalent.

• Experience supporting production platforms, including incident handling, root cause analysis, backup, restore and disaster recovery.

• Strong technical documentation, troubleshooting and cross-functional communication skills.

Preferred

• Experience supporting industrial, manufacturing, edge-computing or OT environments.

• Familiarity with industrial data platforms such as Litmus and HighByte will be an advantage.

• Knowledge of MQTT, Sparkplug B, Kafka and Unified Namespace architecture.

• Experience deploying and operating edge analytics, AI/ML services or GPU-enabled workloads.

• Exposure to OT cybersecurity and IEC 62443 concepts.

• Experience supporting standardised multi-site platform rollouts and regulated or high-availability environments.

Success Profile

• Software and automation oriented, with a preference for repeatable engineering over manual administration.

• Strong operational ownership and disciplined approach to reliability, security and documentation.

• Able to work effectively with OT specialists while bringing depth in modern infrastructure, DevOps and software delivery practices.

• Comfortable balancing standardisation with site-specific constraints and production-critical requirements.

Joining us is more than saying “yes” to making the world a healthier place. It’s discovering a career that’s challenging, supportive and inspiring. Where a culture driven by excellence helps you not only meet your goals, but also create new ones. We focus on creating a diverse and inclusive culture, encouraging individual expression in the workplace and thrive on the innovative ideas this generates. If this sounds like the workplace for you, apply now! We commit to respond to every applicant.