Team Leader - Platform Operations & Automation

Company Overview

Carus develops and delivers a business-critical booking platform offered as a managed service to ferry operators across Europe. We handle millions of bookings annually and operate mission-critical infrastructure that our customers depend on every day. Our platform ecosystem includes booking websites and mobile applications, ticket scanners and hardware integrations, APIs and third-party system integrations, and managed service operations across development, testing, staging, and production environments.

We are a company of approximately 50 people (employees and consultants) with head office based in Mariehamn, Åland Islands. Reliability and quality are our core values—our customers trust us with their operations, and downtime is not an option. We operate with low hierarchy and clear accountability, where decisions are made quickly and responsibility sits close to the work. We are committed to long-term technical sustainability, continuously investing in automation, infrastructure, and people development.

We are an international company with customers and colleagues worldwide, and English is our company language. Our culture is pragmatic and focused on ownership and problem-solving. Team members take responsibility for results and work collaboratively to solve challenges in an informal, straightforward environment.

Carus consists of several functions, including Product, Sales, and Operations. This role is part of the Operations organization, where we are responsible for delivering, running, and supporting the platform, in close collaboration with other functions.

About the Role

We are seeking a Team Leader – Platform Operations & Automation (POA) to lead and develop our POA team. This role combines hands-on technical work, operational ownership, and team leadership.

You will spend approximately 70% of your time working hands-on with infrastructure, automation, and operations, and 30% leading and developing your team.

This is not a pure management role—you will work alongside your team, solving technical problems, building automation, and maintaining critical systems. You will mentor and guide team members, ensure knowledge sharing, and support their development.

Responsibilities:

• Own and ensure stable, secure, and reliable operations in production environments

• Monitor systems, handle incidents, and ensure uptime, performance, and operational stability

• Design, implement, and maintain infrastructure, environments, and CI/CD pipelines

• Drive standardization and automation to improve efficiency and reduce operational risk

• Troubleshoot and resolve operational issues and contribute directly to deployment and platform improvements

• Own and evolve Carus automation platform

• Lead and develop the POA team, including coaching and knowledge sharing

• Collaborate closely with Product Development, Solution Design, Customer Service, and Planning & Strategy to ensure smooth delivery and operation

Requirements:

• Experience in hands-on infrastructure, operations, or platform roles (you are comfortable doing the work, not just managing it)

• Strong technical background in infrastructure, automation, and CI/CD

• Experience leading or coordinating teams in platform, operations, or infrastructure-focused environments

• Experience with technologies such as Ansible, Bash, IBM Cloud, Linux, CI/CD tooling, Oracle, MongoDB, monitoring and security tools

• Understanding of managed service operations, operational reliability, and security considerations

• Strong collaboration skills and experience working closely with development and architecture functions

• Willingness to take ownership of critical operational systems

Nice to Have:

• Experience in the ferry or transport industry

• Security-related certifications

• Experience leading or coordinating small technical teams

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary

• Opportunity to shape and evolve Carus operational and automation capabilities

• A culture built on trust, clarity, and practical problem-solving

• Flexible working conditions with hybrid possibilities

• A role where your technical expertise is valued and you work with a high degree of ownership and independence

Location:

Mariehamn, Åland Islands (with possibilities for remote work)