Associate Platform Engineer

DEPOP; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online platform in the UK is looking for an Associate Platform Engineer to join their team. This entry-level position focuses on maintaining and improving the platform, supporting developers, and learning about cloud-native technologies. Candidates will gain hands-on experience in software engineering and DevOps practices while contributing to platform reliability. The role offers flexibility with hybrid working options and promotes growth through mentorship and various learning opportunities.

Benefits

Health + Mental Wellbeing benefits

Flexible Working options

25 days annual leave

Family support benefits

Learning budgets and mentorship programs

Qualifications

• Fundamentals in software engineering with Python, Go, or JavaScript.
• Interest in Kubernetes and containerization.
• Awareness of CI/CD concepts.
• Good problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Support platform operations and maintain critical capabilities.
• Contribute to managing visibility and reliability services.
• Help enforce secure service hosting practices.
• Work to improve developer experiences on platform.

Skills

Software engineering fundamentals

Collaboration skills

Problem-solving skills

Tools

Docker

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Datadog

AWS

Job description

Platform Engineering at Depop provides the foundational infrastructure and tooling that powers our engineering organisation. Our mission is to enable engineering teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and secure services with ease, by abstracting away the complexities of operating in production.

As an Associate Platform Engineer on the Platform Enablement team, you'll contribute to maintaining and improving our platform, supporting internal developer needs, and learning best practices in infrastructure and platform engineering. This is an entry-level role with a focus on growth and learning, where you will gain hands‑on experience with cloud‑native technologies while helping keep our platform stable and reliable.

Responsibilities

• Support platform operations: Assist with maintaining critical platform capabilities (Github, incident.io, JFrog, Jenkins to name a few)
• Observability and reliability: Contribute to managing Datadog dashboards, alerts, and logging patterns to improve visibility across services.
• Security and compliance: Help enforce best practices for secure and compliant service hosting within Kubernetes.
• Developer enablement: Work closely with product engineers to improve their experience running services on our platform.
• Continuous improvement: Participate in incident management and platform reliability culture, automation, and process improvements.
• Learning & growth: Develop expertise in cloud infrastructure, DevOps practices, and platform engineering under mentorship from senior team members.

Expectations

• Show curiosity and eagerness to learn cloud-native and platform technologies.
• Collaborate effectively with other engineers and stakeholders.
• Take ownership of small platform features or improvements with guidance.
• Proactively seek feedback and continuously develop technical skills.

Key Knowledge & Experience

• Fundamentals in software engineering (e.g., one or more programming languages such as Python, Go, or JavaScript).
• Exposure to or interest in Kubernetes and containerisation – familiarity with Docker is a plus.
• Awareness of CI/CD concepts (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI, or similar).
• Interest in observability tooling (monitoring, logging, tracing) – familiarity with Datadog is a plus.
• Interest in improving and refining incident management processes.
• Interest in improving developer experience.
• Understanding of cloud platforms at a conceptual level – familiarity with AWS is a plus.
• Good problem‑solving skills and the ability to learn new technologies quickly.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills.

Nice‑to‑haves

• Experience working with service meshes (e.g., Istio, Linkerd).
• Hands‑on exposure to infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform, Helm).
• Awareness of security and compliance considerations in cloud environments.

Additional Information

• Health + Mental Wellbeing: PMI and cash plan, healthcare access with Bupa, subsidised counselling and coaching.
• Cycle to Work scheme with options from Evans or the Green Commute Initiative, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for 24/7 confidential support, Mental Health First Aiders across the business.
• Work/Life Balance: 25 days annual leave with option to carry over up to 5 days, one company‑wide day off per quarter.
• Impact hours: Up to 2 days additional paid leave per year for volunteering.
• Fully paid 4‑week sabbatical after 5 years of consecutive service with Depop.
• Flexible Working: MyMode hybrid‑working model with Flex, Office‑Based, and Remote options – role‑dependent.
• All offices are dog‑friendly.
• Ability to work abroad for 4 weeks per year in UK tax‑treaty countries.
• Family Life: 18 weeks paid parental leave for full‑time regular employees, IVF leave, shared parental leave, and paid emergency parent/carer leave.
• Learn + Grow: Budgets for conferences, learning subscriptions, and more; mentorship and programmes to upskill employees.
• Your Future: Life Insurance (financial compensation of 3x salary), pension matching up to 6% of qualifying earnings.
• Depop Extras: Employees enjoy free shipping on Depop sales within the UK, special milestones celebrated with gifts and rewards.