Josh Simpson
Summary
Senior DevOps / Platform Engineer with a strong product mindset and a track record of improving developer experience, delivery speed, and system reliability in growing, mission‑driven organisations. Deeply experienced with AWS, Terraform, CI/CD, and observability, and known for taking ownership of complex systems, reducing operational friction, and enabling teams to ship safely and frequently. Passionate about pragmatic automation and building platforms that teams actually enjoy using.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
Work history
Lead Cloud Engineer
Nurole
10.2024 - Current
- Own and evolve the cloud platform underpinning a Ruby on Rails product, balancing reliability, security, cost, and developer velocity.
- Lead initiatives around cost optimisation, disaster recovery, and security standards, reducing AWS spend by 20%+ month‑on‑month over three consecutive months.
- Drive improvements to CI/CD and deployment workflows to enable faster, safer iteration across product teams.
- Work closely with product engineers to deliver features and platform improvements.
- Act as a technical mentor and sounding board, promoting pragmatic DevOps practices and shared ownership.
Senior DevOps Engineer
Nurole
01.2023 - 10.2024
- Built and maintained container based infrastructure using Terraform, varying AWS services (including ECS, Lambda and a handful of core services) enabling repeatable, auditable changes across environments.
- Improved software delivery reliability and speed by redesigning GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines and introducing clearer deployment patterns
- Enhanced local development workflows to reduce friction for engineers and shorten feedback loops.
- Supported teams with AWS expertise, helping engineers reason about performance, cost, and operational trade‑offs.
Senior Cloud Engineer
Thursday
07.2021 - 12.2022
- Designed, built, and operated AWS infrastructure for a high‑growth consumer product with 30–40k weekly active users.
- Achieved over 50% month‑on‑month cloud cost reduction through targeted optimisation and improved visibility.
- Introduced monitoring, logging, and alerting practices that improved incident detection and reduced mean time to recovery.
- Worked across backend and platform concerns, maintaining Node.js services while strengthening overall system resilience.
Tech Lead
Otto Car
10.2019 - 08.2021
- Led a team to build an internal platform to manage the operation and sale of several thousand vehicles using Node, Vue.js.
- Balanced hands‑on technical work with people leadership, mentoring engineers and fostering a psychologically safe, high‑performing team.
- Defined infrastructure standards and lead organisation on IT and governance throughout
Product Developer
AND Digital
04.2018 - 10.2019
- Delivered AWS‑based backend solutions for clients, adapting to varied domains and constraints.
- Implemented CI/CD pipelines and cloud best practices while mentoring junior engineers.
- Built out features for clients across varying stacks (Javascript, Java, PHP)
- Worked closely with stakeholders to align and plan technical delivery.
Founding Engineer
Medic Tech UK
05.2017 - 04.2018
- Owned the full technical stack for an early‑stage product, from architecture through to delivery.
- Built and deployed a Ruby on Rails platform using Docker, GitLab Runners, and AWS ECS.
- Delivered a React Native mobile application alongside the web platform, establishing agile development practices from day one.
Associate
AND Digital
06.2016 - 08.2017
- Supported large‑scale digital transformation programmes as a hands‑on engineer and consultant.
- Contributed to development, upskilling, and cloud adoption initiatives across multiple team
- Worked across multiple stacks (Javascript, Java, PHP)
Education
Master of Science - Computer Science
King's College London
/2012 - /2016
Skills
- Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS (ECS, RDS, S3, CloudFront, Lambda, IAM), Terraform, Infrastructure as Code
- CI/CD & Developer Experience: GitHub Actions / CI pipelines, Docker, local dev tooling, release automation
- Observability & Reliability: Monitoring, logging, alerting, incident response, cost optimisation
- Languages & Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Nodejs, JavaScript
- Ways of Working: DevOps culture, DORA metrics, cross‑team collaboration, mentoring
Timeline
Lead Cloud Engineer
Nurole
10.2024 - Current
Senior DevOps Engineer
Nurole
01.2023 - 10.2024
Senior Cloud Engineer
Thursday
07.2021 - 12.2022
Tech Lead
Otto Car
10.2019 - 08.2021
Product Developer
AND Digital
04.2018 - 10.2019
Founding Engineer
Medic Tech UK
05.2017 - 04.2018
Associate
AND Digital
06.2016 - 08.2017
Master of Science - Computer Science
King's College London
/2012 - /2016