Engineer: Platform Engineering

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes. We are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.

We are a collegial, collaborative firm where highly motivated individuals with an unwavering commitment to excellence receive the opportunity, support, and development they need to grow, thrive, and realize their greatest potential all while supporting the Firm’s client service principles of excellence, strategic partnership, commercial instinct, integrated strengths, innovation, and collaboration across our international firm.

If you enjoy working with team members whose defining characteristics are exceptional client service, initiative, professionalism, responsiveness, and adaptability, you may be the person we are seeking to join our Information Technology department in our Chicago office, as an Engineer: Platform Engineering.

The Engineer: Platform Engineering is responsible for developing pipelines and scripts that will deliver IT Infrastructure in both public and private cloud, incorporating security best practices. This role will work with other teams to identify and prioritise automation opportunities, building reusable solutions following best practices, then helping that team with adoption so they can provide support. This role will also support fundamental cloud infrastructure technologies including tooling, as well being an escalation point if needed by other infrastructure departments.

Essential Functions: 

• Works with infrastructure and application teams to understand current processes and opportunities for automation
• Provides effort and impact estimates of automation opportunities to assist with prioritisation
• Designs and develops standardised delivery pipelines that can be consumed by application teams to deploy infrastructure
• Be a subject matter expert for infrastructure automation, signposting learning opportunities and mentoring others to help build an automation centre of excellence across infrastructure
• Integrates other firm tooling such as Service Now for the provisioning of services
• Designs, develops and deploys modular cloud-based systems
• Develops and maintains cloud solutions in accordance with best practices
• Ensures efficient functioning of data storage and processing functions in accordance with the firms security policies and best practices in cloud security
• Identifies, analyses, and resolves cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities and deployment issues
• Interacts with other IT teams, providing cloud support, and making recommendations based on their requirements
• Develops and documents cloud best practices, guidelines, and guardrails for cloud technologies
• Creates clear & concise documentation of cloud infrastructure development and standards
• Ensures the CMDB is kept up to date, using automation wherever possible
• Provides automation enhancements to help keep the environment consistent, ease large tasks, ensure compliance, and help with life cycle management
• Operationalise solutions from proof-of-concept through production, using automation for repeatability, maintainability, and to enforce standards
• Works closely with Infrastructure, Application and Security Architects when new solutions are being conceived
• Works with vendor partners to test and benchmark new technologies. Provides findings to Infrastructure Architects team and appropriate levels of management
• Attends regular vendor meetings for areas of expertise, stays informed of latest technology roadmaps, security notifications, and bug/hot fixes
• Ensures vendors provide proper levels of support, maintain SLA’s and provide root cause analysis for escalated issues
• Works with application and infrastructure architects, application teams, and other infrastructure groups to ensure both new and existing systems follow BC/DR guidelines, have documented plans, and are tested and reviewed on a yearly basis
• Acts as third level escalation point for the IT Operations team
• Ensures all team, departmental and firm policies and procedures are adhered to, including change management and service continuity
• Completes all administrative tasks, i.e., (time tracking, project and task updates, trouble ticket notes, status reports, responding to email, etc.) accurately and on time
• Attends and contributes to team meetings
• Fosters trust and builds relationships with the other Information Technology teams both globally and within the region
• Where appropriate, attends user groups independently or with senior managers and makes recommendations of how improvements can be made
• Performs other duties as assigned or required to meet Firm goals and objectives

Education/Training/Certifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field. An equivalent combination of education and/or experience may be considered in lieu of the degree when the experience has been directly related to the functions of the job.
• Microsoft Azure Certification, preferred

Professional Experience: 

• Minimum of 5 years of related experience, required
• Prior experience developing automation solutions from ideation through to deployment, required
• Prior experience working in a global setting, preferred

Technical Skills:

• Experience with CI/CD tooling, required
• Experience developing pipelines & scripts, required
• Terraform, required
• Knowledge of Information Security best practices, required
• Experience automating into public cloud providers, required
• Linux, required
• Git version control, required
• GitHub & GitHub actions, preferred
• Experience with Microsoft Azure, preferred
• PowerShell, preferred
• Kubernetes, preferred
• Python, preferred
• Ansible, preferred
• Visual Studio Code, preferred
• Windows Server and associated infrastructure (e.g. AD), preferred
• Experience developing integrations with ServiceNow, preferred
• Server imaging using Packer, preferred
• Private cloud datacentre, including VMware, Cisco UCS, Dell EMC, preferred
• Private cloud networking, including Cisco ACI, F5 load balancing, Palo Alto firewall, preferred

Performance Traits: 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to communicate effectively and in a professional manner with all levels of the Firm and outside vendors
• Ability to work in a diverse team environment and effectively support the demanding needs of the Firm
• Ability to work under pressure, meet deadlines with shifting priorities
• Must be a self-starter with a high level of initiative
• Strong customer service skills, able to anticipate needs and exercise independent judgment
• Strong attention to detail, organizational skills and the ability to handle multiple projects
• Exercises solid strategic thinking and problem-solving skills
• Committed to continued advancement
• Resilient and able to handle setbacks
• Commitment to process improvement
• Familiarity with established project management and other structured operational practices
• High level of discretion, comfortable handling sensitive information and maintaining confidentiality
• Ability to manage time and prioritize workloads effectively
• Willingness to challenge the status quo

The typical pay scale for this position is between $118,000 and $156,000, although the actual wage or salary could be lower or higher if the candidate’s education, experience, skills and internal pay alignment are different from those specified. 

The above is a general description of the essential duties associated with this position and does not represent an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all duties.

The Firm may modify and amend this job description at any time at its sole discretion. Nothing herein creates a contract of employment or otherwise modifies the at-will nature of employment.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including medical/dental/vision/life/and AD&D insurance, 401(k) savings plan, back-up childcare and eldercare, generous paid time off (PTO), as well as opportunities for professional development and growth.

Thank you for your interest in Mayer Brown. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities and disabled veterans. To request a reasonable accommodation related to the application process and/or job interview, please email uslateralrecruiting@mayerbrown.com. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

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