Naqash Iqbal

Senior DevOps Engineer

hello@naqashiqbal.com LinkedIn Rotherham, UK

Senior DevOps Engineer with 6+ years' hands-on experience across AWS and Azure, delivering immediate impact on cloud transformations, migrations and platforms. Deployed into teams to unblock delivery; designed Kubernetes platforms, introduced IaC standards and contributed development expertise—cutting deployment times by 70% and reducing costs by 30%.

Experience Skills Certifications Education

Key Skills

  • Cloud & Infrastructure as Code: AWS, Azure, Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation
  • CI/CD & Release Automation: GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, build automation, blue/green, artifact repos
  • Containers & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, OpenShift, ECR, pod networking, sidecars
  • Configuration & Scripting: Ansible, Python, Bash, PowerShell, TypeScript, JavaScript, PHP, cron/jobs
  • Monitoring, Logging & Observability: Dynatrace, Splunk, New Relic, Grafana, ELK, CloudWatch, SLIs/SLOs
  • Security & Compliance: DevSecOps, Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, IAM, RBAC
  • Networking, Scaling & Cost: VPC, subnets, LBs, DNS, CDN, autoscaling, perf tuning, cost optimisation
  • Contracting & Delivery: Agile/Scrum, Jira, Confluence, stakeholder mgmt, incident response, mentoring, docs

Experience

Senior DevOps Engineer II · CACI IIG

October 2023 → Current

Met Office – African Wave

Sep 2025 – Current
  • Greenfield migration of legacy WAVE to AWS; owned architecture → provisioning → testing → documentation.
  • Delivered cost‑effective, scalable serverless using S3, CloudFront, Lambda, DynamoDB, AppSync with MO authN/Z.

Home Office – Automation Team

Jul 2025 – Sep 2025
  • Enabled deployment of two major apps across five environments; unblocked delivery and hit targets.
  • Produced CI/CD & Azure architecture diagrams; ran workshops transitioning infra ownership to dev teams.
  • Developed reusable Terraform modules aligned to standards, replacing legacy ARM for scalability.
  • Consolidated IaC to a single cross‑env spec, shrinking codebase by ~400% and improving maintainability.

Home Office – Crossing the Border (Permanent)

Oct 2023 – Jul 2025
  • Delivered production‑grade Kubernetes services; re‑architected critical systems; on‑call support.
  • Supported developers from mini tests to prod; debugged deployments and ensured reliable releases.
  • Owned AWS prod environments using Kibana/Dynatrace; resolved infra & Aurora issues to minimise downtime.
  • Built Jenkins pipelines (Groovy) for provisioning, testing, quality gates to prevent faulty merges.
  • Managed IaC with Terraform and Java build tools (Gradle/Maven) for reusable, consistent deployments.
  • Created k8s plugins (Bash/Python) for debugging and Vault/AWS secrets automation; boosted team efficiency.
  • Tackled ad‑hoc DevOps tasks: TypeScript release automation, PowerShell deployments, k8s sidecars for load‑tests.

Junior DevOps Engineer · Avnet Premier Farnell, Leeds

Jan 2023 → Oct 2023

  • Supported e‑commerce migration from on‑prem to distributed Azure; progress towards headless.
  • Drove DevOps culture: published DORA metrics, introduced ScrumBan, supported global prod deployments.
  • Implemented internal/POC apps on Kubernetes (OpenShift/AKS), managing multi‑region clusters.
  • Built infra pipelines with Terraform & Packer; GitLab CI/CD & Ansible for first automated deployments.
  • Monitored with Dynatrace/Splunk; single point of contact for DevOps tasks & production incidents.

Software Developer · BlueLightCard, Leicester

Aug 2019 → Dec 2022

  • First developer at the UK’s largest emergency‑services discount service; led full lifecycle development.
  • Migrated services to AWS with Serverless/DMS; audit data to Redshift; OpenSearch replacing MySQL search (≈5× faster).
  • Automated cron across servers via Ansible enabling dev self‑service; reduced errors & downtime.
  • Managed AWS via GitLab CI & CloudFormation for consistent, scalable multi‑env provisioning.

Certifications

  • AWS – Cloud Practitioner
  • AWS – Associate Solutions Architect (In‑progress)
  • Azure – AZ‑900
  • Kubernetes – CKA (In‑progress)

Education

  • MSc Computer Science — University of York
  • MEng Chemical Engineering — University of Birmingham
  • A‑levels: A, A, A, C (Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics)