Head of Platform Engineering

SoCode Recruitment; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Job summary

SoCode Recruitment is seeking a hands-on Head of Platform Engineering to drive a cloud-native platform that powers secure, production-grade environments in a scaling tech business working in regulated markets.

The role is senior leadership with direct ownership of platform delivery, reliability, automation, security, and engineering standards across an AWS/Kubernetes estate, reporting to the CTO. London hybrid with travel to Cambridge and no sponsorship.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership with ownership of platform delivery and reliability.
• Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, and GitOps in production-scale environments.
• Background in fintech, SaaS or regulated industries preferred.
• Ability to balance speed with engineering quality in a growth phase.

Responsibilities

• Lead platform engineering strategy, roadmap and delivery.
• Evolve AWS/Kubernetes infrastructure and GitOps models.
• Drive production readiness, observability and security controls.
• Build scalable, repeatable customer deployment environments.

Skills

Platform engineering leadership

AWS & Kubernetes

SRE / reliability engineering

GitOps & CI/CD

Security in regulated environments

Tools

Terraform

Argo CD

GitHub Actions

Job description

Head of Platform Engineering

£120,000-£140,000 + Bonus

London hybrid, with Cambridge Travel

No Sponsorship Option

We’re hiring a hands-on Head of Platform Engineering to lead the evolution of a cloud-native platform powering highly secure, production-grade environments in a scaling technology business operating within regulated markets.

This is a senior leadership role with direct ownership of platform delivery, reliability, automation, security, operational readiness and engineering standards across a modern AWS and Kubernetes estate, reporting directly into the CTO.

You’ll lead a small team of platform and infrastructure engineers while remaining technically close to architecture, delivery and operational decision-making.

Key responsibilities

• Leading platform engineering strategy, roadmap and delivery


• Evolving AWS / Kubernetes-based infrastructure and GitOps operating models


• Driving production readiness, reliability, resilience and observability


• Building scalable and repeatable customer deployment environments


• Establishing secure CI/CD, release governance and operational controls


• Improving platform automation, developer experience and operational efficiency


• Supporting regulated production environments with strong security and auditability standards

Tech environment

AWS | Kubernetes / EKS | Terraform | GitOps | Argo CD | GitHub Actions | CI/CD | Observability | Cloud Security

We’re looking for someone with

• Proven experience leading platform engineering, SRE or cloud infrastructure teams


• Strong hands‑on AWS and Kubernetes (EKS) expertise


• Experience operating production‑grade cloud platforms at scale


• Strong understanding of GitOps, automation and release governance


• Background in fintech, SaaS or regulated environments preferred


• Ability to balance pace, pragmatism, resilience and engineering quality in a growing business

Ideal for someone who enjoys building mature engineering capability within a fast-moving, commercially scaling environment.