Vacancy Notice 1684

INTERPOL is the world’s largest international police organization, with 196 Member Countries. Created in 1923, it facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities, and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime. 

INTERPOL actively encourages applications from women and nationals of member countries that are currently unrepresented among our staff (please click on this link to access the list of countries). Candidates from these countries are particularly encouraged to apply. 

INTERPOL’s recruitment process is merit-based hence all hiring decisions are made considering the applicant’s qualifications and the needs of the Organization.

Job Title: DevOps Architect
Reporting To: Head of Department - Engineering and Solution Design
Location: Lyon 
Type of contract: Fixed-term Contract
Duration (in months): 36.00  
Grade: 4   
Number of post: 1
Level of Security screening:  Enhanced
Deadline for application: 19 March 2026

Conditions applying for all candidates

Only professional experience for which candidates can provide official proof of employment will be considered. Candidates could be requested to provide copies of such official documents prior to interviews/test.

* Subsequent extension to this post will be subject to the terms of the Organization’s Staff Manual, to satisfactory performance and to availability of funds.

Tests/interviews in connection to this selection procedure will take place approximately 2/3 weeks after the deadline for applications. Applicants are kindly requested to plan their availability during this period accordingly, in case they are short-listed.

​Selected candidates will be expected to report for duty approximately one to three months after receiving an offer of employment at the latest.

This selection exercise may be used to generate a reserve list of suitable candidates that may be used to address Organization's similar staffing needs in the future.

The role of the ICT – Information and Communication Technology Directorate is to develop and implement the Organization’s IT strategy, to support the Organization's global operations and facilitate international law enforcement cooperation through the development and maintenance of advanced information systems and applications, such as the I-24/7 Network, INTERPOL Secure Cloud and various Police applications. ICT responsibilities include acquiring, developing, and supporting IT products, deploying IT products to internal and external users including member countries, and ensuring the appropriate security of the Organization’s data and information.

Reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer (CIO), the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) oversees the Engineering and Solution Design Competency Centre, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Platform Competency Centre, DevOps / Quality Assurance (QA) Competency Centre and the Development Competency Centre. Together, these entities form a cohesive technology and engineering ecosystem, supporting INTERPOL’s global ICT strategy and providing the core enablers for the Organization’s digital transformation.

Reporting to the Head of Department - Engineering and Solution Design within the Technology and Engineering Sub Directorate (TEC) The Development and Operations (DevOps) Architect, defines, governs, and evolves the Organization’s Development, Security, and Operations (DevSecOps) and platform engineering architecture to deliver secure, scalable, and resilient digital services. The role translates solution and operational requirements into enterprise DevSecOps reference architectures and standards covering Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure automation, cloud-native platforms, and observability, while ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, security-by-design, and regulatory frameworks. Acting as a Design Authority and trusted technical advisor, the DevOps Architect works closely with Solution Architects, engineering, security, and operations teams to steer complex architectural decisions, validate high-risk initiatives, and ensure consistent implementation. The role promotes automation-first and platform-centric practices, strengthens architectural governance, and continuously improves engineering models and toolchains to enable reliable, efficient, and controlled delivery across the full lifecycle.

DUTY 1: DevSecOps Architecture & Standards

• Define, maintain, and govern enterprise DevSecOps and platform engineering reference architectures, standards, and design patterns, ensuring consistency, scalability, security-by-design, and alignment with Enterprise Architecture principles.
• Act as a technical authority within architecture governance forums, reviewing and validating high-risk or high-impact initiatives, resolving cross-team design issues, and ensuring adherence to approved architectural standards and operating models.
• Review and approve DevSecOps architectures for compliance with enterprise, security, and operational standards.
• Contribute to architectural guidelines, technical evaluations, and procurement or tender activities related to DevSecOps and platform technologies.
• Ensure all designs align with Enterprise Architecture, Security Assurance, and DevSecOps governance frameworks.

DUTY 2: Solution Alignment & Lifecycle

• Collaborate closely with Solution Architects to translate business and solution requirements into executable DevOps and platform architectures supporting intended solution outcomes.
• Support and validate solution designs to ensure alignment with approved reference architectures and delivery standards.
• Supervise architectural documentation and ensure consistency, traceability, and version control across the DevSecOps architecture landscape.
• Contribute to technology lifecycle management, including evaluation, roadmap definition, and rationalization of DevSecOps and platform tooling.
• Ensure architectural coherence and traceability across multi-environment and multi-stage deployments.

DUTY 3: Advice, Support and Escalation

• Provide expert architectural advice and hands-on support to the Squads’ DevOps engineers, on DevSecOps and platform-related matters.
• Act as a trusted escalation point for complex, cross-cutting, or high-risk technical issues, including participation in incident troubleshooting, diagnostics, and recovery during major events impacting cloud and platform services.
• Support informed decision-making by clarifying architectural trade-offs, recommending remediation strategies, and removing architectural blockers.
• Escalate systemic risks, capacity constraints, non-compliance, or structural platform issues to the Head of Engineering and Solution Design and relevant CTO Office governance bodies.
• Support the adoption of DevSecOps and platform practices by advising on operating models, ways of working, change impacts, and associated training and upskilling needs.

DUTY 4: Platform Engineering & Automation Strategy

• Design and evolve shared platform capabilities, including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, container platforms, and self-service tooling, enabling team autonomy while enforcing architectural guardrails.
• Define and guide the enterprise automation strategy across CI/CD, infrastructure, security, and operations, ensuring automation reduces manual effort, operational risk, and time-to-market.
• Embed security, resilience, and compliance by design into DevOps and platform architectures, integrating identity, secrets management, application security controls such as Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), policy-as-code, observability, and reliability engineering practices.
• Contribute to the definition of observability, reliability, and resilience patterns for CI/CD pipelines and platforms.
• Define reliability objectives, Service-Level Indicators (SLIs), and Service-Level Objectives (SLOs), and guide their integration into platform and delivery architectures, balancing availability, performance, resilience, and delivery velocity.
• Performs continuous technology watch on DevOps tooling and practices and proposes evolutions when relevant.
• Lead or contribute to Proofs of Concept (PoCs) and technical experiments for emerging DevSecOps and platform technologies.

DUTY 5: Communication and Governance

• Maintain architectural coherence across Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Security Assurance, and Operations functions.
• Define, maintain, and communicate architecture standards, blueprints, and patterns for DevSecOps platforms.
• Conduct architecture and design reviews, ensure governance compliance, and provide formal architectural sign-off where required.
• Promote collaboration, transparency, and knowledge sharing through Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and technical communities of practice.
• Contribute to the Platform Governance Framework to ensure decisions are traceable, auditable, and aligned with business objectives and enterprise technology strategy.

Perform any other duties as required by the hierarchy.

Education and qualification required:

• University degree or equivalent professional qualification (three to four years of higher education) in computer science, engineering, information systems, or a closely related field.
• Relevant professional certifications in DevOps, cloud, platform engineering, security such as GIAC Cloud Security Automation (GCSA), GIAC Defensible Security Architecture (GDSA), Certified Jenkins Engineer (CJE), or GitLab Certified DevOps Professional.
• ITIL® Foundation or equivalent service-management certification is considered an asset.

Experience required:

• Minimum of five years of experience in a large, complex, enterprise-scale IT environment.
• Proven experience acting as a Design Authority, Lead Architect, or Principal Architect for public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud infrastructures.
• Demonstrated expertise in at least two of the following domains: Kubernetes-based architectures, DevSecOps pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code practices.
• Proven experience providing architectural leadership and escalation support during major cloud or platform incidents, including troubleshooting and recovery activities.
• Experience designing and operating hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, including GitOps workflows, Zero-Trust and/or Policy-as-Code frameworks, with familiarity in Change, Configuration, and Incident Management processes.

languages:

• Fluency in English.
• Knowledge of a third official working language of the Organization (Arabic, French or Spanish) would be an additional asset.

Abilities required

• Strong leadership and governance mindset, with the ability to act as a Design Authority.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to lead complex technical investigations during incidents and provide sound decisions.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to operate effectively in a multicultural environment.
• Methodical, results-oriented, and adaptable, with the ability to manage multiple complex initiatives simultaneously and work collaboratively across teams.

Technical proficiency (Desirable Key Competencies)

• Architectural expertise in containers and Kubernetes.
• Strong knowledge of infrastructure automation and platform provisioning patterns
• Experience designing and governing CI/CD and GitOps architectures, leveraging tools such as GitLab CI/CD, Argo CD, Jenkins, or equivalent solutions.
• Advanced understanding of cloud-native networking and traffic management architectures, including service meshes and ingress/egress patterns.
• Expertise in DevSecOps and policy-driven security controls, including secrets management, identity and access control, and Policy-as-Code frameworks.
• Architectural knowledge of observability and reliability engineering stacks
• Experience with hybrid and multi-cloud architecture.
• Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks such as CIS Controls, NIST 800-207 (Zero Trust), and ISO/IEC 27001, and their translation into technical and architectural controls.