Lead Infrastructure & DevOps Engineer (AWS)

Cultural heritage data lives in databases, paper archives, books, and collections across the globe. But new digital tools can help connect those silos, encourage collaboration, and enhance transparency. NavigatingArt is a nonprofit organization that protects and promotes cultural heritage by empowering teams with the tools to create and publish digital catalogues raisonnés and archives.

At NavigatingArt, we are building a platform to digitize and preserve the world’s cultural heritage. As our Lead Infrastructure & DevOps Engineer, you will take full ownership of our cloud infrastructure and DevOps processes — from daily operations to long-term architectural evolution.

This is a solo infrastructure role: you will be the primary expert and decision-maker for all aspects of infrastructure design, maintenance, security, scalability, and cost efficiency. There is no DevOps team — just you. That means we’re looking for someone who is not only technically strong, but also proactive, reliable, and ready to take full responsibility for their domain.

You’ll work closely with developers and product managers, often navigating the intersection between infrastructure, backend development, and product priorities. That cross-functional mindset is essential — this is not a narrowly scoped position.

We work in a hybrid model and meet in person 1-2 times per week in our Berlin office. This is important to us: we value face-to-face collaboration and team culture. Fully remote setups or digital nomad arrangements are not a match for this role.

As our Lead Infrastructure & DevOps Engineer, you will:

• Take full ownership of our AWS-based infrastructure – operations, maintenance, scaling, evolution, and cost optimization
• Design and improve Terraform-based infrastructure as code for reliability and reuse
• Maintain and evolve CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
• Monitor system health, performance, availability, and security – and respond to incidents when needed
• Collaborate with backend and product teams on cross-cutting concerns (e.g. API integrations, access control, observability, infrastructure implications of product changes)
• Build internal tooling and scripting to automate operational tasks and improve development velocity

Must-haves

• Deep hands-on experience with AWS (e.g. VPC, ECS/Fargate, RDS, Lambda, S3, IAM)
• Strong skills in Terraform and infrastructure automation
• Familiarity with container-based deployments (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience maintaining CI/CD pipelines and build infrastructure
• Solid understanding of monitoring, alerting, and logging systems
• Strong coding/scripting skills (e.g. Python, Bash, Go)
• Comfort working autonomously in a single-owner role
• Willingness to work on-site in Berlin 1-2 days per week
• Proactive mindset and ability to work across infrastructure ↔ development ↔ product

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with multi-account AWS setups, security hardening, and compliance
• Familiarity with serverless design, observability stacks, or Terraform modules at scale
• Exposure to CDK, although our current setup uses Terraform

• Purpose-driven work: Help preserve and digitize cultural heritage while working on real-world infrastructure challenges.
• Ownership & impact: This is a high-autonomy role where your decisions shape the technical foundation of our platform.
• Hybrid work culture: Work flexibly from home, but connect in person with the team 1 - 2 days per week in our Berlin office.
• Work-life balance: Reasonable hours, no on-call rotation, and a healthy respect for downtime.
• Modern equipment: MacBook Pro and high-quality gear tailored to your needs.
• Health & wellness: Urban Sports Club membership (M package) or subsidized public transport ticket (Deutschland Ticket).
• Family-friendly environment: We’re a small team with a human-first mindset, and we support flexibility for parents.

In 2021, a group of art historians and developers recognized the potential of new technologies to ease the creation of digital catalogues raisonnés and archives for global audiences. NavigatingArt has since applied digital strategies to meet the needs of institutions, increasing the availability of historical materials and lowering the barrier to comprehensive research. It became a nonprofit organization in 2024, supported by the Hasso Plattner Foundation, thereby aligning its legal status with its mission to protect and promote cultural heritage.

Our values

• Integrity: transparency, authenticity, and responsibility are at the fore of everything we do.
• Expertise: we grow personally and professionally while learning from mistakes and striving for excellence.
• Durability: we prioritize longevity in the products and materials we create in an effort to do things only once — even when this emphasis requires slow thinking and development.
• Collaboration: we work across teams to overcome complex challenges that require everyone’s contribution, not just those at the top.

NavigatingArt is committed to providing a friendly and safe environment for everyone who works here or with us, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion (or lack thereof), and art preferences.