AI Platform Tech Lead

Marks and Spencer; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Employee discount

Job summary

Marks & Spencer is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to design and develop scalable enterprise platforms with a focus on data, AI, and cloud technologies. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, reusable solutions aligned with architectural standards.

The role emphasizes strong Microsoft Azure experience, Databricks, AI services, and infrastructure as code, with responsibilities to define technical designs and drive platform optimization.

Qualifications

• Experience designing scalable, enterprise-grade platform solutions.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable platform capabilities spanning Azure infrastructure, Databricks, Data Lakes, data integration, AI services, APIs, and model hosting solutions aligned to enterprise architecture standards.
• Produce clear, high-quality technical designs and guide implementation, ensuring robustness, maintainability, and alignment to best practices.
• Develop and document reusable, platform-first components and services to enable consistency and accelerate delivery across teams.
• Drive optimisation across performance, scalability, and cost, leveraging automation and codified engineering practices.
• Collaborate across engineering, architecture, and product teams, clearly communicating technical concepts and continuously improving platform capabilities and ways of working

Skills

Azure platform engineering

Databricks

Azure AI Foundry

AI services

APIM

Event Hubs

Key Vault

Private Networking

Infrastructure as Code

Solution design

Technical leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Azure Databricks

Azure OpenAI

Job description

The Staff Platform Engineer role focuses on designing and developing scalable enterprise platforms with expertise in data, AI, and cloud technologies. This position collaborates across teams to deliver secure, efficient, and reusable solutions aligned with organizational standards. Requires strong experience with Microsoft Azure, Databricks, AI services, and infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities include producing technical designs, driving platform optimization, and enabling faster delivery through reusable components.

Due to high interest, this role may close earlier than advertised. We recommend applying as soon as possible,

All the details

What You'll Do

Your key accountabilities will include

• Design and build scalable platform capabilities spanning Azure infrastructure, Databricks, Data Lakes, data integration, AI services, APIs, and model hosting solutions aligned to enterprise architecture standards.
• Produce clear, high-quality technical designs and guide implementation, ensuring robustness, maintainability, and alignment to best practices.
• Develop and document reusable, platform-first components and services to enable consistency and accelerate delivery across teams.
• Drive optimisation across performance, scalability, and cost, leveraging automation and codified engineering practices.
• Collaborate across engineering, architecture, and product teams, clearly communicating technical concepts and continuously improving platform capabilities and ways of working

Who You Are

Your skills and experience will include

• You are a highly analytical and detail-oriented engineer, able to break down complex business and technical challenges into robust, scalable platform solutions, always thinking beyond individual use cases towards strategic platform capabilities.
• You have strong experience platform engineering experience across Microsoft technologies including Azure Data Services, Databricks Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, APIM, Event Hubs, Storage, Key Vault, Private Networking, Identity, Security, Monitoring, and Infrastructure as Code.
• You are a strong technical leader and solution designer, producing clear, well-structured designs, influencing technical direction, and establishing high standards for engineering excellence, reliability, and operational supportability
• You are an excellent communicator, translating complex technical concepts into clear, compelling narratives for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• You take ownership end-to-end, delivering high-quality, reliable solutions while driving reusability, optimisation, and automation through codified engineering practices

What's In It For You

Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special ...

• After completing your probationary period, you'll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

Everyone's welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We're disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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