DevOps Engineer Azure / AKS / IaC

We are currently looking for an experienced DevOps Engineer to join a major Azure-based platform programme in Abu Dhabi on an initial 6-month contract. This role will take ownership of deployment, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD pipelines and operational reliability across a complex Azure environment. The successful candidate will ensure that platform components are deployed consistently, tested automatically and operated reliably, with a strong focus on automation, security, scalability and reproducibility. You will be responsible for managing Azure infrastructure, AKS operations, container governance, monitoring, alerting, secrets management and disaster recovery processes across the platform. Key Responsibilities: • Own and maintain Azure infrastructure using Terraform or Bicep • Design and manage CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions • Manage AKS clusters, namespaces, RBAC, network policies and autoscaling • Oversee container image build, signing, governance and deployment processes • Configure Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and KQL-based alerting • Manage Azure Key Vault, secrets, certificates and managed identities • Support security controls including Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud and private endpoints • Maintain and test disaster recovery procedures across Azure services • Work closely with security, engineering and platform teams to ensure operational reliability Required Experience: • 5+ years experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering or Cloud Engineering • 2+ years hands-on experience working with Azure • Strong experience with Terraform or Bicep in production environments • Strong Kubernetes / AKS experience, including namespaces, RBAC, Network Policies and Helm • Experience building and maintaining multi-stage CI/CD pipelines • Strong knowledge of Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and KQL • Experience with Docker, ACR, image signing and container governance • Good understanding of Azure networking, including VNets, NSGs, private endpoints, Azure Firewall and ExpressRoute concepts • Experience with KEDA or similar autoscaling technologies Nice to Have: • Azure Key Vault, Managed Identity and Workload Identity experience • OPA Gatekeeper or Kyverno experience • Kafka or Azure Event Hubs experience • ADLS Gen2, WORM storage or lifecycle management experience • Azure AI Foundry or APIM experience • Defender for Cloud, Sentinel or Notary v2 experience • AZ-104, AZ-400 or CKA certification