DevOps Manager / Release & Deployment Manager

Eurobase Insurance Division | Chelmsford, Essex | Hybrid

Reports to: Chief Insurance Officer

Location: Chelmsford, Essex (hybrid | 2 days/week in office, flexible day-to-day)

The Role

This is not a maintenance job. Our Insurance division is at the start of a genuine transformation. Right now, our deployments are manual. Our four-strong DevOps team is capable, stable, and hungry to learn, but they need a leader who has done this exact journey before : taken a team from hand-cranked releases to fast, reliable, automated Azure Pipelines.

We need a builder and a coach . Someone who can design CI/CD from scratch, get their hands dirty in YAML and Azure DevOps, and then bring the team with them. Someone who understands that in regulated insurance software, "move fast and break things" is not the ethos, but "move fast with zero downtime and full audit trails" is.

If you've inherited a mature DevOps function and kept the lights on, this isn't for you. If you've built one, measured the results, and coached a team to own it, we want to talk.

What You'll Do

• Own and build our deployment automation, design and implement Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines (YAML) for our .NET / SQL Server / IIS applications, reducing manual intervention and deployment risk
• Lead our database deployment strategy, implement and govern schema versioning and deployment using SSDT/DACPAC, Flyway, Liquibase, or Redgate across dev, test, UAT, and production environments
• Plan and oversee releases, manage UAT and production deployments, environment creation, and PI/BOB upgrades with full governance and rollback capability
• Build the team's capability, run skills audits, pair-programme with engineers, identify champions, and transfer ownership so the team improves the pipelines without you
• Drive stability and observability, introduce proactive monitoring, maintenance, and technical debt reduction across the deployment estate
• Be the primary contact, work directly with development, project management, and support teams on all release matters
• Manage supplier relationships, hold key technology partners to account

What We're Looking For

Must-haves (non-negotiable):

• Proven transformation story, evidence of taking a team from manual to automated deployments, with metrics (time saved, error reduction, frequency increase)
• Deep Azure DevOps experience, multi-stage YAML pipelines, branching strategies, immutable artifacts, environment promotion with approval gates, Azure Key Vault, service connections, rollback design
• Database deployment tooling, hands-on experience with SSDT/DACPAC, Flyway, Liquibase, or Redgate for SQL Server schema versioning and deployment
• Direct people management, line management of 3+ engineers, with structured 1:1s, performance management, and a track record of developing underperformers
• Regulated environment mindset, comfort with CAB approvals, zero-downtime requirements, and governance that enables speed rather than blocking it

Nice-to-haves:

• Insurance or financial services experience (we build reinsurance and banking software, regulated, mission-critical)
• On-prem to Azure cloud migration experience
• Terraform or Bicep experience

What we are NOT looking for:

• Directors, VPs, or Enterprise Architects looking for a strategic oversight role, this is 50–60% hands-on
• Contractors or interim managers, this is a permanent, culture-building role
• Candidates whose only CI/CD experience is Jenkins, GitLab, or GitHub Actions, we are all-in on Azure DevOps
• Test Managers, Release Coordinators, or Infrastructure Managers who have never built an application deployment pipeline from scratch

Why Eurobase?

• 30+ years in business , cash-rich, stable, global reach (25+ countries)
• Genuine greenfield opportunity, you are shaping what this function becomes, not maintaining someone else's design
• Team is keen to learn, stable, senior engineers who want to grow, not a team that needs firing and rehiring
• Autonomy, if you see a better way, you have the freedom to change it
• Cross-division collaboration — work with both Insurance (Synergy2) and Banking (Siena) divisions
• ISO 2701 2 accredited, we take security and governance seriously

The Process

• Recruiter screening call, 20-minute conversation to confirm core fit
• First-round interview (remote), (Head of Engineering, technical depth) + (Development Manager, leadership & culture)
• Second-round interview (in-person, London or Chelmsford) | (Head of HR) + (Chief Insurance Officer)