Principal Platform Engineer - Secure Environments

Description

The company builds secure platforms for defence, government and public-sector customers, and this role keeps those services delivered, maintained and improved.

As a principal platform engineer you will stay hands-on technically while leading engineering and overseeing delivery. You will shape how secure platforms are designed, integrated and implemented, and guide the engineers building them.

You will take the lead on customer problems, working in an agile, inventive way within a close team.

The company operates across aerospace, defence and security, employing over 53,000 people worldwide, including 8,500 across 9 UK sites.

Developed Vetting (DV) clearance is required before you start, given the systems and environments involved.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the go-to technical expert for one or more platform engineering areas, advising projects and programmes.
• Lead the design, integration and build of secure platforms on-premises, in highly controlled settings and, where suitable, in hybrid or cloud environments.
• Stay close enough to the hands-on work to resolve hard engineering problems and check the output of the wider team.
• Gather and analyse complex customer requirements, then turn them into platform designs and engineering tasks.
• Write, review and sign off high-level and low-level designs that follow secure-by-design thinking, governance rules and customer needs.
• Own the technical side of work packages, covering planning, estimating, staffing, risk, progress reporting and technical acceptance.
• Direct multidisciplinary engineering teams so work meets cost, quality and schedule targets.
• Coach and develop junior and senior engineers, and encourage knowledge sharing across the engineering community.
• Help with recruitment, including technical screening, interviews and onboarding when needed.
• Present solutions to internal and external stakeholders, flag delivery risks and explain engineering decisions.
• Drive improvement through automation, reusable patterns, shared standards and lessons learned.
• Contribute to technology strategy, feasibility studies, innovation and future capability planning.
• Take on line management or people leadership where this is part of the agreed role.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in platform and infrastructure engineering, with a record of delivering secure and resilient solutions.
• Ability to combine hands-on engineering with technical leadership, delivery ownership and coordination of engineering teams.
• Sound technical judgement and a problem-solving approach, weighing options and recommending proportionate solutions.
• Experience directing technical work, mentoring engineers and assuring their output.
• Skill in planning engineering activities, managing technical dependencies and communicating progress, risks and decisions clearly.
• Comfortable engaging with customers, architects, project teams, service teams and other engineering disciplines.
• Broad platform engineering skills, with deeper experience in one or more relevant areas.
• Must have: Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform engineering.
• Must have: VMware or comparable enterprise virtualisation, where VMware Cloud Foundation experience is highly desirable.
• Must have: networking concepts including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing and firewalls.
• Must have: delivery in highly controlled, regulated or secure settings such as defence or air-gapped systems.
• Must have: automation and scripting with tools such as PowerShell, Bash, Python, Ansible or Terraform.
• Must have: managing infrastructure through its lifecycle, including deployment, configuration, patching, upgrading, monitoring and sustainment.
• Must have: knowledge of cyber security controls, secure-by-design principles and accreditation requirements.
• Must have: experience across the systems engineering lifecycle.
• Must have: developing, reviewing and assuring high-level and low-level technical designs.
• Must have: owning or coordinating technical delivery, including planning, estimating, risk management and progress reporting.
• Must have: technical leadership and mentoring, guiding engineers across different platform disciplines.
• Desirable: Privileged Access Management, including CyberArk or comparable technologies.
• Desirable: Public Key Infrastructure, certificate lifecycle management and trust services.
• Desirable: cross-domain solutions, secure data transfer and controlled data flows across trust boundaries.
• Desirable: VMware Cloud Foundation, including vSphere, vSAN, NSX and VMware Aria.
• Desirable: software-defined data centre technologies.
• Desirable: DevOps, DevSecOps and CI/CD practices.
• Desirable: platform deployment pipelines and Infrastructure as Code.
• Desirable: Ansible, Terraform and platform automation.
• Desirable: VMware Aria Automation Suite.
• Desirable: Active Directory, identity services and wider enterprise integrations.
• Desirable: cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
• Desirable: containerisation platforms such as Kubernetes or Docker.
• Desirable: security monitoring, SIEM and integration with SOC tooling.
• Desirable: ITIL or service management practices.
• Desirable: relevant technical, engineering or leadership certifications.
• You do not need to be a specialist in every area. The company is looking for broadly capable platform engineers with depth in one or more of these domains who can work across a multidisciplinary secure platform environment.

Conditions

Based at the Bristol site, supporting secure customer programmes run from Yeovil and other secure locations.

Regular and sustained attendance at Yeovil is required. This is not a standard hybrid role, so expect significant on-site work throughout delivery.

Regular and sustained attendance at secure customer locations is also required, with work at company sites where programme and security constraints permit.

Flexible or remote working may be possible for suitable activities where programme needs, customer expectations and security constraints allow.

Permanent contract, onsite working, primary location GB Yeovil Lysander Road.

Pre-employment screening follows the UK Government's Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), and National Security Vetting (NSV) controls also apply, with DV clearance required before starting.

Pay follows a grade-based framework with broad bands; the range shown is the approved grade band or a narrower hiring range within it, benchmarked against the external market, and pay above that range goes through governance controls to protect internal equity.

The company is committed to an inclusive, accessible workplace and will support any accessibility needs during recruitment.

Benefits

• Up to 12 additional flexi-days of leave each year.
• Pension with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Free access to mental health support, financial advice and employee-led networks.
• Free access to 4,000+ online courses through Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.
• Up to £500 a year in flexible benefits, such as private healthcare, lifestyle discounts and gym memberships.
• Flexible hours, with hybrid working options.