Head of Cloud

McLaren Bahrain; Woking; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative automotive company is seeking a Head of Cloud to lead the development of a cutting-edge cloud infrastructure for AI-driven services. In this pivotal role, you will architect a cloud-native platform, enabling real-time data processing and large-scale AI training. Your expertise in distributed systems and collaboration across teams will drive the success of autonomous vehicle technologies. Join a dynamic environment that values diversity and inclusion, where your contributions will shape the future of mobility and redefine industry standards. This is your chance to make a significant impact in a forward-thinking organization.

Benefits

Structured career development framework

25 days’ holiday plus bank holiday

Enhanced company pension scheme

Discretionary annual bonus

Private medical insurance

Life assurance benefit

Sabbatical opportunities

Discounted shopping benefits

Generous parental leave policies

Wellbeing initiatives

Qualifications

• Experience leading large-scale cloud architecture for AI and IoT platforms.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and data security protocols.
• Familiarity with AI lifecycle tooling and hybrid compute environments.

Responsibilities

• Architect a cloud-native AI platform for real-time data processing.
• Develop multi-cloud strategies optimizing AI inference.
• Lead OTA software update strategies ensuring secure deployments.

Skills

Cloud Architecture

AI and Machine Learning

Distributed Systems

Data Security Protocols

MLOps Workflows

Hybrid Compute Environments

Collaboration Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's Degree in a relevant discipline

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Kubernetes

Kafka

Spark

Snowflake

Job description

What to Expect

We are recruiting for a Head of Cloud to join our Autonomous, Connected Mobility and AI team in Woking. As the Head of Cloud, you will architect and lead the cloud backbone for McLaren Automotive's entire connected and intelligent vehicle ecosystem, enabling secure, low-latency, and high-performance AI-driven services across all global programs.

This role is mission-critical to supporting end-to-end autonomy stack development, real-time vehicle intelligence, and connected services. You will build the next-generation infrastructure to support large-scale fleet data ingestion, AI training pipelines, predictive diagnostics, and OTA model deployment — all within a global, safety-critical automotive context.

What You'll Do

• Architect a cloud-native AI platform that enables seamless real-time data processing, large-scale AI training, and ultra-fast ADAS/AD software deployment.
• Develop multi-cloud and edge computing strategies, optimizing AI inference on-vehicle vs cloud-based model updates.
• Build a high-performance, low-latency cloud data pipeline, capable of ingesting and processing large-scale vehicle telemetry and sensor data in real time.
• Lead OTA software update strategies, ensuring secure, scalable, and fault-tolerant AI model and software deployments.
• Oversee AI/ML deployment workflows, ensuring optimized model retraining, fine-tuning, and continuous learning across connected vehicles.
• Develop real-time fleet intelligence dashboards, enabling predictive maintenance, fleet-wide AI analytics, and connected mobility services.
• Collaborate with the Head of Connectivity to ensure ultra-fast vehicle-to-cloud (V2C) and cloud-to-vehicle (C2V) communication architectures.
• Ensure compliance with global data protection, security, and automotive cloud governance standards (including AI model fairness regulations).
• Work with AI and engineering teams to optimize distributed AI workloads, balancing edge computing and centralized cloud inference.

What You'll Bring

• Proven experience leading large-scale cloud architecture for real-time AI, autonomy, or IoT-based platforms.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, foundation model pipelines, MLOps workflows, and data security protocols.
• Experience with hybrid compute environments (cloud + on-prem clusters) and globally distributed AI training workflows.
• Familiarity with AI lifecycle tooling: model versioning, telemetry triage, continuous retraining, and OTA deployment infrastructure.
• Expertise with public cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure), container orchestration (Kubernetes), and data platforms (Kafka, Spark, Snowflake, etc.).
• Strong collaboration skills across software, AI, infrastructure, and compliance domains.

What We'll Do for You

We Offer a Wide – Ranging Benefits Package, Which Includes

• Structured career development framework.
• 25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days.
• Enhanced company pension scheme.
• Discretionary annual bonus award.
• Private medical insurance and health cash plan.
• Life assurance benefit.
• Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years’ service.
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping.
• Generous parental leave policies.
• A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice.

Who Are We?

No restraints. No limitations. We don’t simply push boundaries. We completely rethink them. McLaren Automotive exists to create breath-taking performance road cars.

It takes a community to do what we do. A diverse group of people with many areas of expertise, united by their passion to deliver visionary products and set new benchmarks.

McLaren Automotive commits to equal opportunity for all. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is at the heart of our impact, it drives our innovation and enables us to truly create something special. Join us on our journey.