DevOps Engineer Job Description and Hiring Materials
DevOps Engineer "Super Stack" — Senior/Veteran Level
Working Hours: Central Europe hours, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: Remote (Philippines)
Start Date: Flexible — as soon as the right candidate is found, no fixed deadline
Budget: £1,250 – £1,500 some flexibility for a candidate whose experience clearly justifies it
About the Role
The company is a fast-moving startup where everyone wears multiple hats. We're looking for a DevOps Engineer, but not the traditional kind — we want someone who came up as a highly experienced software developer and evolved into handling the DevOps side of things, rather than someone trained specifically as a DevOps specialist through bootcamps or certifications. Think "super stack," not full-stack: someone who's genuinely comfortable moving between infrastructure and backend development, who can write proper documentation, propose solutions, and pick up whatever the day requires.
Right now the immediate priority is cloud infrastructure work — our architecture needs review, and we're preparing for stricter governance including ISO/SOC certification. But cloud work won't be constant, so this person also needs to be able to flex into backend development when infrastructure work isn't the priority.
What You'll Be Doing
Architect, scale, and maintain cloud infrastructure on AWS, including reviewing and redesigning parts of our current architecture
Support ISO/SOC certification readiness — largely documentation-heavy work and system changes, carried out under the direction of our CISO, who is leading the certification effort himself
Write production-quality backend code, internal tools, and automation scripts, flexing into backend development whenever cloud/infra work isn't the priority
Drive architectural choices across infrastructure, data layer, and API design, and offer solutions proactively rather than waiting to be told exactly what to build
Standardize CI/CD workflows and developer environments to improve engineering velocity
Author and maintain high-quality system documentation, architecture diagrams, and runbooks as a standard part of the job, not an afterthought
Work across whichever stack or language is in front of you — adaptability matters more than which specific language you know
What We're Looking For
Experience: Roughly 5–10+ years as a developer/engineer. We're flexible on the exact number — what matters is genuine seniority and hands-on depth, not a specific years-of-experience cutoff. We are not looking for someone who trained specifically as a DevOps engineer via diploma or bootcamp; we want a veteran developer who took on DevOps responsibility.
Cloud: AWS-savvy is a must. Familiarity with GCP is a strong advantage but not required.
Backend development: Fluent in at least one backend language — the specific language doesn't matter (Python, Go, Node.js, Java, C#, etc. all fine); what matters is the ability to pick up whatever the team is using.
Documentation: Comfortable writing clear technical/operational documentation as a core part of the role, not a nice-to-have.
ISO/SOC exposure: Not required, but prior experience with ISO or SOC certification work is a plus.
English fluency: Must be genuinely confident and fluent in spoken English — this is a hard requirement. Grammar perfection isn't the bar, but the person needs to communicate clearly, ask questions when uncertain, and be understood without difficulty in real-time conversation.
Mindset: Self-directed, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to work with minimal oversight in a fast-moving, structure-light environment.
Hiring Process
On the client side, expect 2–3 rounds: an initial screen with the COO and CISO, followed by a final round with the CEO.
Assessment will be conversational — discussing past projects and how the candidate approaches unfamiliar problems — rather than take-home coding tests. The client explicitly does not want candidates using AI tools during interviews and will screen for this.
Welcome! I have thoroughly reviewed your specifications for the Senior/Veteran "Super Stack" DevOps Engineer role.
Since this is a unique role targeting a highly self-directed developer-first engineer based in the Philippines working CET hours, having the right candidate-facing and hiring team materials is crucial. To kick things off, we should establish the exact document you need first.
I can draft a comprehensive, high-quality Job Description / Job Ad designed to attract this specific profile, or we can begin by building internal alignment tools like an Interview Screening & Assessment Rubric to help your team effectively evaluate candidates on their hands-on developer backgrounds and weed out AI-reliant applicants. Which asset would you like to focus on first?
Create the Candidate Interview & Screening Rubric
Senior 'Super Stack' DevOps Engineer Interview Rubric
This evaluation guide is tailored for hiring teams assessing a candidate for the Senior/Veteran "Super Stack" DevOps Engineer role (Remote, Philippines, working CET hours). Because we are looking for a software-developer-first engineer who naturally transitioned into DevOps—rather than a pure systems administrator or a boot camp graduate—this rubric prioritizes real-world architectural design, hands-on coding depth, and highly proactive problem-solving.
To ensure we bypass generic AI-generated answers during the interview, the screening relies heavily on interactive, scenario-based conversational deep dives. Evaluators should look for candidate-led stories of failures, design tradeoffs, and operational compromises.
Once the document is generated, look closely at the behavioral prompts under Pillar 5. These are specifically structured to test for genuine experience. When you ask a candidate to step through a live architectural failure, an experienced engineer will recall specific, highly messy details, whereas a candidate relying on an AI model or memorized boot camp templates will often offer overly clean, generic, or textbook answers.