DevOps Lead Engineer

About SimoTech

SimoTech provides manufacturing automation and IT systems engineering, project management and validation services. We partner with life sciences companies to design, build, operate and optimise critical process automation systems that deliver fast track project delivery, operational efficiency, improve manufacturing agility and achieve regulatory compliance.

Why SimoTech

What is it like to work at SimoTech? With a strong collaborative teamwork culture based on respect, trust and excellence, we play a critical partnering role to our clients’ life-changing supply of products to patients. In return, there is excellent salary, benefits, career progression, educational support and much more.

DevOps Lead Engineer 1697

SimoTech has a new opportunity for an DevOps Lead Engineer to join our team, supporting a large-scale greenfield implementation for a state-of-the-art biotech manufacturing campus on site in Limerick, Ireland.

Working closely with development, operations and QA teams your core responsibility will be to successfully design, configure, and maintain MES CI/CD pipelines to support reliable and repeatable MES deployments. As DevOps Lead Engineer you will take ownership of MES standards, applications/tools, and the MES environment, forming the basis of the MES program.

The ideal candidate will have proven experience as a Lead or Senior DevOps Engineer with experience deploying configuration changes across development, test and live production environments. This includes experience using version control for MES configuration, expertise in CI/CD pipelines, and supporting automated testing.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, deploy, and support CI/CD pipelines that enable consistent, reliable, and repeatable MES releases across development, testing, and production environments.
• Lead the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of CI/CD pipelines, release automation, and DevOps tooling to enable secure, reliable, and repeatable MES deployments across all environments.
• Own the DevOps toolchain and environment lifecycle, including source control, infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, version control, environment governance, and release management.
• Manage and support MES platforms and environments, including Emerson Syncade, ensuring platform performance, availability, resilience, security, and operational health through effective monitoring, logging, and alerting.
• Establish and maintain development standards, branching strategies, code review practices, change control processes, and release governance aligned with regulated manufacturing and GxP requirements.
• Collaborate with MES vendors, system integrators, QA teams, and internal stakeholders to deliver scalable infrastructure-as-code, deployment automation, and integrated quality assurance capabilities.
• Lead the provisioning and management of secure, scalable, and resilient infrastructure supporting MES applications, while serving as the primary escalation point for complex deployment and operational issues.
• Support Computer System Validation (CSV), audit readiness, disaster recovery, and business continuity activities through robust documentation, audit trails, deployment records, and compliance-driven operational practices.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across the software delivery lifecycle by eliminating deployment bottlenecks, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing key delivery and reliability metrics (including DORA measures).

Key Requirements

• Extensive experience leading DevOps and MES platform delivery with Emerson Syncade, including deployment, configuration, patching, upgrades, and operational support.
• Strong expertise in CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, automation, and environment management using tools such as Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Bash, and Python.
• Proven ability to manage enterprise software delivery lifecycles, including release management, change control, environment promotion, and configuration governance.
• Experienced in regulated pharmaceutical and life sciences environments, with strong knowledge of GxP CSV, GAMP 5, validation documentation (IQ/OQ/PQ), and compliance requirements.
• Strong troubleshooting, security, and operational support capabilities, including vulnerability management, security hardening, and resolution of complex deployment issues.
• Solid understanding of MES integrations with SAP, LIMS, historian systems, shop-floor connectivity, containerisation technologies (Docker/Kubernetes), and OT/IT convergence within manufacturing environments.
• Ability to work in a hybrid model, with 3 days per week based on-site and 2 days working remotely.

What SimoTech Can Offer

• Role provides a high degree of autonomy to allow the successful candidate to reach their full potential.
• Develop new skills and enhance technical ability by working with innovative technologies in a multi-disciplined environment.
• Opportunity to work with large corporate clients on exciting capital projects.