DevOps I Platform I Tools Engineer

Thales Group; Crawley; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-related bonus

Half day every Friday

28 days annual leave + bank holidays (

Private healthcare

Pension scheme

Life cover

24/7 Employee Assistance Program

Discount schemes

Gym membership discounts

Job summary

Thales Group is looking for a Principal Applications Engineer to modernise and migrate engineering environments to a cloud-based Azure platform while maintaining existing toolsets. The role focuses on reliability, automation, and user experience for UK engineering teams.

You will lead migrations, coach juniors, and collaborate with a Technical Product Owner to deliver improvements in an agile environment across Crawley, Reading, and other UK sites.

Qualifications

• Experience in modern DevOps and platform engineering.
• Experience migrating tooling to Azure cloud-based environments.
• Ability to work in an agile team with stakeholders and coach others.

Responsibilities

• Deploy and support cloud-based engineering tools on Azure infrastructure (CI/CD, artifact management, code quality, licensing).
• Build or modify deployment solutions with IaC and automation to ensure consistency and reliability.
• Improve processes through automation and reduce manual effort across environments.
• Maintain existing environments during transition to new platforms to ensure stability.
• Support delivery teams with automated provisioning of infrastructure resources.
• Implement operational best practices including monitoring, backups, archives, and log management.

Skills

Agile development

Coaching/mentoring

Automation

SRE practices

Tools

Linux

Kubernetes

Docker

JFrog Platform

GitLab

Ansible

Python

Azure

Virtual Machines

Job description

## DevOps I Platform I Tools EngineerApply: Hybrid: Crawley: Reading: Bristol: Cheadle: Glasgow: Full time: Posted Today: End Date: October 2, 2026 (17 days left to apply): R0338078Location: Crawley, United KingdomThales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.This role is a **Principal Applications Engineer** position within Thales UK’s engineering tooling team, focused on modernising and migrating the company’s engineering environments to a cloud-based Azure platform while maintaining existing toolsets and supporting engineering users throughout the transition.**Location(s):** **Crawley or Reading or Cheadle or Bristol or Glasgow or any other Thales site in the UK****Role purpose and context:**Thales is transforming how it delivers tools to its engineers by building the **next generation of Engineering Environments** on a cloud-based platform. In this role, you will:* **Build and support** a modern, cloud-native tooling environment that provides an outstanding experience for engineering teams across the UK.* **Lead migration** from legacy on-prem or older tooling to new Azure-based solutions, ensuring continuity of service during the transition.* Work in an **agile development team**, collaborating closely with a Technical Product Owner and other stakeholders to plan, prioritise, and deliver improvements.* Provide **coaching and guidance** to more junior team members and champion best practices in deployment, automation, and operations.The role sits at the intersection of **platform engineering, DevOps, and internal developer experience**, with a strong emphasis on reliability, automation, and user satisfaction for engineering teams.**Key responsibilities**Your core accountabilities include:* **Deploy and support industry-leading tools** on Thales’ cloud-based Azure infrastructure (e.g., CI/CD, artifact management, code quality, licensing).* **Build or modify deployment solutions** where off‐the‐shelf reuse isn’t possible, often using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation.* **Improve current processes** through automation, reducing manual effort and increasing consistency and reliability.* **Maintain existing environments** through the transition phase, ensuring stability for engineering users while new platforms are rolled out.* **Support delivery teams** with automated tools and scripts to provision infrastructure resources (compute, network, storage) in a simple and efficient manner.* **Implement operational best practices**, including supervision/monitoring, backups, archives, and log management, to ensure robust, secure, and auditable environments.You’ll maintain principal relationships with engineering users, the Technical Product Owner, Service Delivery Manager, Delivery Manager, and Head of Discipline to align tooling with business needs.**Technical stack and skills**We are looking for strong hands‐on experience in modern DevOps and platform engineering technologies. Highly desirable skills include:* **Linux** administration and scripting* **CI/CD methodologies** and pipeline design* **Kubernetes** and **Docker** for containerisation and orchestration* **JFrog Platform** (Artifactory/XRay) for artifact and dependency management* **GitLab** for source control and CI* **Ansible** for configuration management and automation* **Python** for scripting and tooling* **Virtual Machines** and cloud infrastructure conceptsPlus experience in any of the following is a strong advantage:* **Atlassian Suite** (Jira, Bitbucket, Confluence)* **Siemens Polarion** (requirements/ALM)* **FlexLM License Server*** **Black Duck SCA**, **Coverity**, **SonarQube** (security and code quality)* **Jenkins** (CI/CD)**Benefits:*** Performance-related bonus* Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00* 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)* 24 hours volunteering paid for* Private healthcare* Pension scheme* Life cover* 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app* Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers* Gym membership discounts**Security Clearance Requirement****:**Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a non-ITAR country may be considered.To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels.#LI-DB1