The company is seeking a skilled and proactive DevOps & Release Engineer to join our dynamic technology team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In this role, you will be responsible for managing and optimizing our continuous integration and deployment processes and infrastructure while ensuring the stability and security of our native Kubernetes environments. Your expertise will contribute to streamlining our release cycles, enhancing operational efficiency, and supporting scalable, reliable applications aligned with business objectives. This position offers a vital link between development, QA, and operations teams to facilitate seamless delivery and operational excellence.
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Key Responsibilities:
- Maintain and optimize GitLab repositories, permissions, and branching models in line with best practices.
- Design, build, and continuously improve CI/CD pipelines across multiple projects.
- Deploy, operate, troubleshoot, and optimize services running on native Kubernetes clusters.
- Manage artifacts and binaries using Nexus Repository Manager, enforcing retention and versioning policies.
- Execute and refine release management processes, including version control, branching strategies, documentation, rollout plans, and rollback procedures.
- Support deployment strategies such as Blue/Green, Canary, and Rolling updates for minimal service disruption.
- Implement monitoring and logging solutions, ensuring system health and performance visibility.
- Enforce security best practices across all automation pipelines, clusters, and repository systems.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure delivery consistency, troubleshoot issues, and perform root-cause analysis.
- Maintain comprehensive documentation of processes, pipelines, and operational guides.
Technical Skills Required:
- DevOps & CI/CD: Expertise with GitLab CI/CD pipelines (versions 12.x and above) including knowledge of merge strategies and environment branching workflows.
- Kubernetes: Strong hands-on experience with native Kubernetes (not managed services), familiarity with Pods, Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, and Ingress.
- Repository Management: Experience with Nexus or similar repository managers for container images and binaries, managing artifact lifecycle, versioning, and retention.
- Monitoring & Logging: Experience with ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) and Grafana.
- Release & Deployment: Understanding of release cycles, workflows, and deployment models, including Blue/Green, Canary, and Rolling deployments.
- Security & Compliance: Knowledge of securing CI/CD pipelines, managing secrets, and access control.
Experience Requirements:
- Minimum 4 years of hands-on experience in DevOps, CI/CD, and infrastructure automation.
- Proven experience managing native Kubernetes clusters in production environments.
- Demonstrable expertise with GitLab or similar version control systems.
- Familiarity with monitoring, logging, and security best practices in DevOps contexts.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field; equivalent practical experience is acceptable.
- Relevant certifications (e.g., Kubernetes Administrator, DevOps Foundations) are advantageous.
Professional Competencies:
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Effective communicator able to collaborate across teams.
- Demonstrates ownership, responsibility, and proactive issue resolution.
- Capable of working efficiently under pressure during critical release windows.
Language Requirements:
- Proficiency in English is expected; additional languages may be beneficial.
