DevOps Team Lead (Azure, Copado)

1944 DevOps Team Lead

Position Summary

The DevOps Team Lead plays a critical role in designing, overseeing, automating, and maintaining enterprise CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure, and deployment processes to support seamless delivery of software solutions. This role drives scalability, reliability, and performance across cloud and on-premises environments while championing DevOps practices such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC), continuous integration (CI), and continuous delivery (CD).

The position requires both strong technical expertise and leadership capabilities. This individual mentors team members, collaborates with development and operations groups, and fosters continuous improvement across the entire delivery lifecycle. The ideal candidate is proactive, analytical, and passionate about automation, observability, and innovation capable of leading cross-functional initiatives that enhance deployment velocity, system stability, and operational excellence.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

General Leadership

• Coordinate team schedules, workload distribution, and resource planning.
• Supervise, mentor, and support team members to achieve goals and deliverables.
• Promote best practices in documentation, technical processes, and knowledge sharing.
• Ensure adherence to established standards, guidelines, and policies.

Release Management & Deployment

• Lead and manage release operations including scheduling, planning, and resource coordination.
• Oversee enterprise release cycles across Azure, MuleSoft, RPA, and Salesforce platforms.
• Manage deployment governance using Copado, including user-story promotion, merge-conflict resolution, and prevention of direct production edits.
• Maintain standardized release governance, documentation, and compliance processes.
• Coordinate release calendars, environment refreshes, versioning, and rollback strategies while mitigating risks.
• Enforce Copado quality gates (static code analysis, regression testing, metadata validation) prior to approvals.
• Manage pre-deployment checks, deployment execution, post-deployment validation, and ticket updates.
• Facilitate post-release reviews and drive improvements to future deployment outcomes.

Environment & Configuration Management

• Manage and optimize both production and non-production environments across multiple platforms.
• Define and oversee version control, branching models, and release tagging strategies in Git-based repositories (Azure Repos, Bitbucket, GitHub).
• Maintain consistent configuration baselines and environment variables.
• Ensure release integrity, traceability, and audit compliance.
• Oversee sandbox strategy, environment alignment, and automated data seeding activities.

Monitoring & Optimization

• Partner with teams to improve performance, scalability, and reliability of release pipelines.
• Lead root-cause analysis efforts for deployment issues and implement long-term solutions.

CI/CD Pipeline & Automation

• Oversee the architecture, development, and maintenance of enterprise CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps.
• Direct automated build, test, and deployment processes across Salesforce, MuleSoft, and RPA environments.
• Integrate Azure DevOps with Copado for coordinated release orchestration and automated testing workflows.
• Lead IaC automation using Terraform, ARM templates, Bicep, or similar tools.
• Enforce automated quality gates, approval workflows, and release controls.

Collaboration & Governance

• Collaborate with architects, development leads, and project managers to align release cycles with organizational priorities.
• Communicate release status, risks, and dependencies through established governance channels (e.g., CAB).
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to DevOps engineers and release coordinators.

Documentation

• Maintain detailed documentation for system configurations, technical designs, troubleshooting procedures, and operational runbooks.

Quality & Compliance

• Ensure releases meet quality, security, and compliance standards by partnering with development, QA, and compliance teams.
• Verify that Salesforce deployment processes, Copado pipelines, branching standards, and promotion paths are documented and followed.

Process Improvement

• Continuously refine release management processes through automation, enhanced documentation, and workflow optimization.

Team Leadership & Mentoring

• Mentor junior team members and foster a culture of continuous learning and technical excellence.
• Provide coaching, encourage collaboration, and act as an escalation point for complex issues.
• Promote skill development and certification across the team.

Qualifications & Competencies

Required Experience

• 5+ years of experience in IT engineering with a focus on DevOps.
• 5+ years of experience leading teams or managing technical personnel.

Education

• Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related discipline.
• Master s degree in a STEM or Business field preferred.

Required Skills

• Proficiency in Azure DevOps (pipelines, YAML/classic, variable groups, service connections, artifacts).
• Experience with MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, CloudHub, or Runtime Manager.
• Hands-on experience with deployment automation using Copado, Azure DevOps, or Salesforce CLI (SFDX).
• Strong Git-based version control skills and knowledge of branching strategies (GitFlow, trunk-based, etc.).
• Experience with IaC tools such as Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep.
• Scripting proficiency (PowerShell, Bash, Python, YAML, Groovy).
• Understanding of containerization (Docker, AKS, Kubernetes) a plus.
• Familiarity with monitoring/logging tools (Application Insights, Azure Monitor, Splunk, ELK).
• Experience integrating DevOps tools with ServiceNow, Copado, or Jira for governance and change tracking.