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How to Write a DevOps Engineer CV That Gets Interviews (UK)

A devops engineer CV lives or dies on listing every cloud and tool buzzword without showing the SLO or velocity number you moved. Most devops engineer applications never reach a human: the ATS filters them on missing keywords, and recruiters bin the rest in seconds. Here's how to tailor a DevOps Engineer CV to the specific job ad in front of you.

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What a DevOps Engineer CV needs to pass the ATS

Applicant Tracking Systems screen devops engineer CVs on exact-match keywords. Stuffing backfires (the recruiter still has to read it), but missing the obvious terms gets you binned before anyone sees the document. The keywords most devops engineer job ads scan for in SaaS, fintech, B2B platforms and engineering-led startups:

  • CI/CD
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • Terraform
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • GCP
  • observability
  • Prometheus
  • GitOps

Hand-curated for this role, not auto-generated. Use the exact words from the specific job ad you're applying to, that's what the ATS is scanning for.

What recruiters look for in a DevOps Engineer CV

Past the ATS, a recruiter gets seven seconds with your CV before deciding whether to read further. The top third (the title, professional summary and key competencies) has to answer their screening questions instantly. For a DevOps Engineer, that means:

  • Cloud platform(s) and your level (AWS Solutions Architect Associate? Professional? Day-job only?)
  • The infrastructure you've actually owned (size of cluster, deploys per day, services managed)
  • One reliability or velocity outcome with the metric named

Before and after: one DevOps Engineer bullet

Weak

Built and maintained CI/CD pipelines and deployed services to AWS.

Strong

Owned the GitHub Actions + ArgoCD deployment pipeline for a 60-microservice platform on EKS at a UK fintech (4,000 deploys/month); cut p95 deploy time from 14 to 6 minutes in Q2 2023 by parallelising the test suite and rebuilding the container-layer cache.

The weak version names tools. The strong version names the platform scale (60 services, 4k deploys/month), the specific levers (parallel tests + cache rebuild), the metric (p95 deploy time), the movement (14 to 6 min) and the timeframe. DevOps screens on whether you've actually moved infrastructure-level numbers.

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Tailor your DevOps Engineer CV in 30 seconds

Paste your CV and a devops engineer job ad. TAILOR scores it against the ATS, the recruiter and the hiring manager, then tells you exactly what to fix.

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DevOps Engineer CV FAQ

Should I include AWS, Azure or GCP certifications on a DevOps CV?

Name the cert + year, and back it with one bullet showing you've used it commercially. 'AWS Solutions Architect Associate (2023); designed and deployed an event-driven data pipeline using Kinesis + Lambda for X.' Certs without commercial backing read thin.

How do I show on-call or incident response on a CV?

Name the volume and the role. 'Primary on-call for the platform team (1-in-4 rota); led 6 P1 incidents to resolution in 2023 with average MTTR under 35 minutes.' Specifics beat 'experienced on-call engineer'.

Do I need a public GitHub or terraform-modules portfolio?

Helps for hiring managers, especially at startups; less critical at enterprises. If you have one, link it from the contact block. If you don't, lean harder on owned-and-named commercial work. The bullet-level evidence carries it.

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