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Greater London, England, United Kingdom
Remote only
The Operations Engineering Manager will own the operational reliability of the company’s GPU‑accelerated HPC infrastructure and lead a team of Operations Engineers. This role combines technical leadership with people management and Agile delivery ownership.
The successful candidate will set the vision for operational excellence, manage and develop the internal team, and work closely with Platform, Network, and Infrastructure teams to build operational excellence. The role will also play a key part in implementing and maturing the company’s scaled Agile Framework across Operations Engineering, ensuring alignment, transparency, and continuous improvement.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
Team Leadership & Management
Lead, coach, and develop an internal team of Operations Engineers.
Set clear goals, priorities, and expectations for the team.
Manage workload and resource allocation across the team.
Support regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and development plans.
Build a collaborative team culture focused on ownership and accountability.
Operational Ownership & Reliability
Own the reliability, performance, and availability of the GPU-accelerated HPC infrastructure from an Operations perspective.
Oversee proactive system monitoring, incident trend analysis, and root cause analysis.
Define, track, and report on key operational metrics.
Ensure strong operational control through effective processes, runbooks, and change management.
Drive proactive improvements in reliability, automation, and performance.
Agile Ways of Working & Framework Oversight
Champion and oversee the scaled Agile Framework within the Operations function.
Collaborate with Product, Platform, and Network teams to align priorities and manage backlogs.
Support Agile ceremonies such as planning, stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives.
Improve delivery flow, predictability, and cross-team coordination.
Ensure work is prioritised and delivered in line with Agile principles.
Process, Automation, and Documentation
Own the creation and maintenance of operational documentation, SOPs, and troubleshooting guides.
Drive automation initiatives to reduce manual effort and improve consistency.
Promote best practices in scripting, configuration management, and observability.
Maintain effective knowledge sharing across the team.
Stay informed on relevant trends and assess opportunities for improvement.
People & Stakeholder Communication
Provide regular status updates and reporting to leadership.
Represent Operations in cross-functional planning and strategic discussions.
Act as an escalation point for major incidents and complex technical issues.
Coordinate with Platform, Network, and third-party support teams during critical events.
Communicate clearly to support alignment, risk management, and decision-making.
YOUR QUALIFICATIONS
Required
5+ years in infrastructure/operations, with 2+ years managing a technical team.
Advanced Linux administration in production, ideally at scale.
Proven experience running incident/problem management and working with third‑party or external support teams.
Hands‑on with automation (Ansible or equivalent) and monitoring/observability tools (e.g. Grafana, Prometheus).
Experience with Agile ways of working and exposure to scaled Agile frameworks.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to work closely with Platform, Network, and leadership.
Nice to Have
Experience in HPC or GPU‑accelerated environments (NVIDIA GPUs, InfiniBand/RDMA, parallel file systems).
Scripting skills in Python and/or Bash for automation and tooling.
Understanding of performance tuning for HPC/GPU systems.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps tooling.
Background designing or improving on‑call rotations, runbooks, and incident readiness.
With us, you will work towards the future of HPC: From new, sustainable building methods for data centers to cooling concepts to software solutions for accelerated compute.
Your approaches count: In official exchange formats or spontaneously at the coffee machine. At Northern Data, it's the best idea that counts - not the hierarchy. We’re looking forward to getting your inputs!
You make the difference in the company: Unlike in established corporations, at Northern Data you will really help shape things. From implementing new departments, to optimizing processes and culture.
Best-in-class partners: The best work with Northern Data. This means a knowledge and time advantage from which your career and our customers benefit equally.
Green by heart: Sustainability is at the core of Northern Data. With us, you actively work on the carbon neutrality of datacenters worldwide. Beginning with our infrastructure and continuing with the solutions for our clients, we work towards a green future.
Home Office facts: Work with our international and virtual team flexible from home. And of course, your hardware wishes will be fulfilled to make your ideas for next level HPC come true.
Your wellness matters: At Northern Data we have regular wellbeing initiatives that are designed to promote wellness, diversity, inclusion, and much more, ensuring a supportive and enriching environment for our global team.
