AWS Cloud Engineer

Salary on offer: £63,000 - £73,500 plus benefits

We are looking for an AWS Cloud Engineer to join the Platform team here at Reach Plc to deliver and support engaging new functionality for the UK’s number one digital news provider. With a large portfolio of over 100+ products we deliver news & information on a national & regional level. We have over 150 staff in our Product & Engineering department which is one of the most exciting digital teams to join in the UK (if you have ever read the Mirror, Star, Express or one of our local Live brands online you’ll have experienced the work of this team). 

Reporting to the Head of Development, the AWS Cloud Engineer will work closely with the development teams, QA, product, operations & other infrastructure engineers within the team. 

This is a remote role within the UK. The infrastructure team works entirely remotely with occasional meetings in the office.

So, who are we? 

We are Reach Plc, you might not have heard of us but we have probably met without you even realising it. We are home to the UK and Ireland’s most iconic digital platforms, magazines and newspapers. From the Mirror, Daily Express and OK!, to our regional titles such as the Liverpool Echo, BirminghamLive and the Manchester Evening News (plus lots more), our brands and the stories we cover are as varied as our people. We help all kinds of people share experiences through our stories because we believe this is what makes us human. 

Oh, and we should probably also mention that with a monthly readership of 47 million people, Reach is the largest commercial publisher in the UK. At Reach, not only will you feel better understood, you will also feel you understand other people better too. 

Key Responsibilities

In this role, you will be responsible for carefully planning and documenting your work before beginning any tasks.

You'll be expected to attend promptly to AWS requests for action and perform regular system refreshes to ensure everything runs smoothly. Maintaining pre-existing systems will be a key part of your duties, along with managing and creating AWS accounts, users, groups, and permissions within SSO.

You will also handle the safe decommissioning of infrastructure and work to mitigate any security non-compliances across various accounts.

Additionally, you'll need to respond efficiently to ad hoc requests from other teams or stakeholders, ensuring effective communication and collaboration.

The Ideal candidate

The ideal candidate will have a solid grasp of CI/CD principles and practices, with practical experience in creating, maintaining, and optimising deployment pipelines. They should be familiar with common GIT workflows and understand their appropriate applications. Proficiency in using JIRA, Confluence, and G Suite is essential. A strong knowledge of Varnish, Nginx, Tomcat, and Apache is required, along with the ability to diagnose and trace faults using terminal access and other tools.

Experience with infrastructure as code, particularly CloudFormation, is important. The candidate should also possess a comprehensive understanding of AWS security, including the use of policies, roles, SSO, security groups, and network access control lists, ideally with insights into organisational units (OUs) and service control policies (SCPs). Additionally, they should be adept at cost control and maintaining cost awareness across the AWS estate. Strong skills in logging, monitoring, and alerting are also crucial for this role.

The below would be an advantage too:

• AWS Certifications preferable

We are offering a competitive salary and benefits including;

• Help saving for your retirement - join our pension scheme and we’ll match contributions up to 6%
• 25 days’ holiday per year when you join. After three, five and ten years’ service with Reach, you’ll accrue one additional day of annual leave. We also have a Holiday Purchase Scheme
• Giving back day - an additional day’s leave each year to support a cause close to your heart
• Enhanced family leave - including maternity, paternity and adoption - and you’ll be eligible after just six months’ employment
• Private Healthcare Cash Plan - free health cash plan so you can claim back cash for a range of medical expenses
• As one of the UK’s top 50 Inclusive Employers everyone’s invited to join our events, programmes and networks to celebrate diversity and build an environment where all our people can thrive
• Wellbeing support - including a 24/7 employee assistance programme (EAP) for you and your nearest and dearest
• Awesome career opportunities - you’ll have support from your line manager and a range of learning & development programmes
• We are also a member of the 30% Club, a global campaign aimed at increasing gender diversity at board and senior management levels

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested please apply early to avoid disappointment.

Reach plc believes diversity brings benefits for our customers, our business and our people. This is why we are committed to being an inclusive employer and encourage applications from all suitable applicants irrespective of background, circumstances, age, disability, gender identity, ethnicity, religion or belief and sexual orientation.