Who are we?

Howden is a collective – a group of talented and passionate people all around the world. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mind-set, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 15,000 employees spanning over 100 countries.

Our people are our biggest asset as well as our largest shareholder group and are everything that makes us unique; our inclusive culture, the quality service we offer our clients, and our continued growth, all come from our people-first approach. There’s no such thing as individual success. We all need to play our part, contributing our skills and experience to make a true difference. That’s Howden.

Why work at Howden?

We have always been employee-owned and driven by entrepreneurial spirit. Right from the beginning, we've focused on employing talented individuals and empowering them to make a real difference to the company, whilst building successful and fulfilling careers at the same time. Simply put, we hire talented specialists and give them what they need to make a difference for clients. Always have, always will.

People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down disappointed head-hunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work/life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.

Role Definition

The Howden Group Holdings (HGH), Group Architecture and Engineering function is responsible for aligning the Group’s technology strategy with the overall business strategy and delivering innovative, business-outcomes-focused digital technology solutions.

The Group Engineering function plays a critical role in understanding business challenges and opportunities, partnering closely with the business colleagues and delivering robust, secure, cost-effective technology solutions for key business transformation initiatives.

As a Senior Cloud Engineer you’ll provide leadership to the Group Engineering cloud engineers as a subject matter expert for AKS, Infra as Code (IaC), pipelines and other related technologies. The role will include setting standards, fault finding, continuous improvement and being hands on with the technology.

The successful candidate will be self-motivated, comfortable to take ownership of a task, collaborate and present solutions with the wider team to resolve issues. Strong communication skills and enthusiasm for technology will drive success in this role.

Key Responsibilities / Accountabilities

• Contribute to and provide leadership qualities in the development and deployment of cloud technologies.
• Work individually and as part of a team to carry out end-to-end implementation of primarily public cloud-based technologies.
• Drive best practice tooling, process, documentation both personally and with the wider team.
• Proactively identify opportunities and risks within designs and/or live cloud hosted services and direct follow up remediation activities.
• Advise and assist Group Engineering teams in developing cloud solutions.
• Undertake consultative engagements with teams across the wider business as a subject matter expert.
• Scope cloud infra deployments as well as (high level and detailed) deliverables.
• Proactively identify potential optimizations to solutions and tooling throughout their life cycle.
• Proactively consider and assess the security posture of applications and the tooling used to build and support them.
• Work in an agile, collaborative manor and be adaptable to changing scenarios.
• Ability to challenge the ideas and solutions of others respectfully and accept criticism.

Knowledge and Experience

Essential

• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure.
• Strong experience with Terraform Infrastructure as Code (IAC) deploying & managing Azure resources.
• Prior experience of Kubernetes, (ideally Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)).

Desirable

• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure DevOps Services, experience with other CI/CD tools will be considered
• Experience of cloud technologies deployed in an enterprise environment.
• Prior experience of fault-finding hybrid cloud connectivity (datacentre to PaaS) would be beneficial.
• Ideal candidates will have the ability to review the output industry standard cloud security information security tooling.
• Experience or knowledge of scripting/automation: e.g.PowerShell/Python/YAML.
• Experience or knowledge of API Ops is advantageous but not essential.
• Experience or knowledge of AKS the DevOps tooling ecosystem (Flux, Docker, etc) would be advantageous.

Professional Qualifications

• Ideal candidates will have at least one or more of the ‘Associate’ level Azure certs (e.g. Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert is preferred,whilst Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate would be beneficial).
• Ideally you will be HashiCorp Certified to Terraform Associate level (but this is not essential)

Who we’re looking for

At Howden we value diversity - there is no one Howden ‘personality type’. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:

• Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new
• We support each other, in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges
• We are determined to make a positive difference, at work and beyond

What do we offer in return?

A career that you define.

Our business succeeds by allowing our people to make a mark in the areas they care about most: personal development, volunteering, and fundraising for charity, or creating new insurance products that address society’s greatest challenges.

And we know that separate home and work lives don't really exist. If you're happy and healthy at home, you're more likely to be happy and fulfilled at work – and vice versa. That's why we do our best to support our people in every aspect of their lives.

Diversity and Inclusion

At Howden, we consider our people our chief competitive advantage and as such we treat colleagues, candidates, clients, and business partners with equality, fairness, and respect – regardless of age, disability, race, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or family circumstances.

Our sustainability promise

We’re on a life-long journey to become an ever-more sustainable group. It's a commitment to taking care of our people and the world we live in, to doing good business, and to making a positive impact wherever we can. Our governance processes, company policies, and review systems are all geared towards our goal of making a positive impact in the world. You can read more about our sustainability work here.

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