DevOps Coach

•  Team Context  

  We are building a new team that will be charged with driving strategic change across the Digital Services organisation within Aflac.  The DevOps strategy will enable developers across our Agile teams to build pipelines that will automate the elevation and release process, leverage test-automation capabilities, and shift gears as we move to an increasing number of Cloud platforms.  The investment in this technology will ensure that we are delivering exceptional experiences for our 50 million policyholders.

  But it’s not just a technology change; it’s a mindset change.  Pivoting an organisation towards a new way of doing things, requires a passion for progress and a determination to eradicate manual effort.  And so, we will be building a team of DevOps experts who love the technology, but more importantly can instil the following core principles into Agile teams:  

  • Always focusing on improving flow
  • Shifting left on team feedback loops
  • Embedding a culture of continuous learning and experimentation

  We’ll be using a range of different tools and technologies, and the goal is to empower our developers to develop, build, test, and deploy their code in a frictionless way.  We want them to be masters of their own destiny and avoid relying on countless invisible teams to perform tasks on their behalf.  The aim is to coach and guide our development teams to harness the power of the tools at their disposal; help them identify the pain-points and solve the issues themselves; give them a kickstart and then let them run.  

  The team will spend dedicated time with Agile development teams in Northern Ireland and in the US, delivering workshops and dojos that will provide demonstrable change in just a few days.  The DevOps strategy at Aflac is building momentum and delivering value, and now we need to accelerate the effort with a new high-performing team in Belfast that will bring it to a new level.  Should be fun!

  Role Context  

  We are looking for an experienced DevOps professional who can deliver inspiring workshops that will empower Development teams to automate their processes and adopt a DevOps mindset.  Someone who knows how to hold a room, and lead people to challenge the way they do things, and inspire them to accelerate their DevOps journey, not just during interactive sessions, but long afterwards.

  We want someone who has significant experience of DevOps tools and platforms, can understand the technical complexities that come with enterprise systems, but crucially who can use everyday language to translate concepts and make them easily digestible for everyone.  The ideal candidate will be familiar with Value Stream Mapping, and process improvement techniques, and can really engaged and inspire people.  Someone who can “talk techie” when required, but whose real value lies in the ability to communicate expressively with a range of audiences, from senior leaders to technical experts.  

  You will be able to coach and inspire others with the knowledge that “they can do it”, and have a mindset of teaching by doing, so that others will have the confidence to do it by themselves. You will have the opportunity to drive significant change across the Digital Services organisation, putting DevOps at the centre of how we build world-class solutions at Aflac – as well as having a lot of freedom and fun in the process. 

  What you’ll be doing

  • Lead workshops and dojos that will take Development teams through a journey to explore process improvement, using Value Stream Mapping and other techniques.  
  • Coach, motivate and support the team as they partner with other teams, overcoming technical and procedural challenges.
  • Build confidence in the Development teams, enhancing their level of expertise, and increasing their knowledge of DevOps tools so that they can confidently build CI/CD pipelines for themselves.
  • Closely partner with Global Security to implement a Secure DevOps model that considers application security from the outset, and leverages tools and automation that enhance security through the application architecture.   
  • Solving complex problems in a collaborative and open learning environment alongside fellow team members.
  • Listening to the inputs of others and working towards the best solution that maximises the value to the policyholder, without ego or prejudice.

  What you should have 

  Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don’t rule yourself out if you don’t have everything on the list – it’s your intellect and your attitude we’re really after. 

  Essential  

  • Excellent, written and verbal communication skills  
  • Bachelor’s degree. Comparable commercial experience may also be considered
  • Demonstrable and proven leadership capabilities
  • To have successfully led client workshops or dojos – first-class stakeholder management
  • Experience in DevOps using a range of technologies   
  • Strong software engineering principles and architecture knowledge
  • Experience in systems automation, virtualization, orchestration, continuous integration, deployment, and implementation

  Desirable  

  • Experience leading or participating in change management programmes, particularly in large corporate organisations   
  • Experience delivering projects for customers/clients located in different time zones
  • Previous experience in application development / software engineering
  • Knowledge and experience in some of the key technologies required for the role, such as:
  • Familiarity with cloud-based technologies (AWS, Azure or GCP)
  • GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker 
  • Code scanning tools: Vericode, SonarQube
  • Test Automation: Robot Framework, Selenium, Appium
  • Infrastructure as Code
  • Monitoring / Telemetry
  • Experience in process improvement practices and patterns:
  • Value Stream Mapping
  • DevOps Kaizen
  • Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery
  • Shifting security, testing and monitoring left

  So that’s us. Thanks for taking the time to read this far (pretty impressive in the era of the 280-character tweet). We look forward to hearing from you if you fancy joining a tech innovation company with the agility of a start-up and the stability of a Fortune 500 U.S. company. 

  Aflac Northern Ireland is an equal opportunities employer