Lead Platform Engineer

Whereby; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is building shared services for Platform Engineering to power energy innovations worldwide. You will lead a functional team, align with Directors and Heads, and own stability, scalability, and delivery.

This remote-first role emphasizes asynchronous collaboration across time zones, mentoring engineers, and driving architectural decisions while living Kraken values.

Qualifications

• Experience with AWS and diverse AWS services including serverless, managed, and containerised environments.
• Proven track record delivering critical path projects at scale.
• Excellent asynchronous communication across multiple timezones and teams.
• Meticulous planning and organisational skills.
• Mentoring or coaching a team to perform at high quality.
• Experience managing large-scale internet-facing distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Own a functional Platform Engineering team and set strategic priorities.
• Ensure production stability and scalable, reliable services.
• Manage team priorities and delivery timelines.
• Collaborate with Platform Engineers and Product Manager on technical implementations.
• Lead major initiatives with clear schedules.
• Mentor engineers and foster open, inclusive culture.
• Provide architectural guidance and code reviews.

Skills

AWS

Distributed systems

Mentoring

Async communication

Delivery of critical path projects

Security best-practices

CI/CD tooling

Leadership / people management

Tools

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Serverless

Event-driven architecture

Job description

Help us use technology to make a big green dent in the universe!

Kraken powers some of the most innovative global developments in energy.

We create the technology that redefines utilities and unlocks a new energy system of the future. By optimising renewable generation, building a more intelligent grid, and empowering utilities to deliver an exceptional customer experience, our operating system is transforming the industry worldwide.

It’s an incredibly exciting time to work in energy. Join us on our mission to improve the lives of ONE BILLION humans within the decade and shape a cleaner, better future for everyone.

The Shared Services Platform team is a horizontal Platform team that builds reusable capabilities for other Kraken teams, rather than owning one customer-facing workflow.

Its scope includes:

• Authentication and identity, including Support Site SSO and SCIM-based user provisioning.

• Event infrastructure, such as broker-as-a-service, topics, event schemas, integrations, and security/schema guardrails.

• Shared platform patterns and tooling that let teams self-serve, build securely, and avoid solving the same infrastructure problems repeatedly.

What you’ll own

• Have ownership of a functional team within Platform Engineering, working closely with the Director and Heads of Platform Engineering to define strategic objectives and team direction

• Own the production stability and reliability of the team’s services, ensuring they are built to scale and operate effectively in production

• Manage team priorities and deliveries

• Collaborate regularly and effectively with Platform Engineers in your functional team to deliver the technical implementation of the team’s strategic priorities, working alongside the Product Manager.

• Lead delivery of major initiatives on clear timelines

• Partner effectively in the wider Platform Engineering team to deliver outcomes

• Build a strong culture of open communication where teammates can ask questions without fear, promoting a positive and inclusive team environment.

• Live the Kraken culture and values, and be a role model for your team

• Line-manage a group of Platform engineers

• Set clear performance expectations and goals for team members

• Regularly review individual and team performance, offering actionable insights and constructive feedback to support and grow team members

• Deliver technical improvements such as small features and bug fixes, as well as larger projects with the team

• Support team delivery through code reviews, technology research and architectural guidance

• Drive and improve the non-functional elements of production systems owned by your team

What you’ll bring to the party

• Great experience with AWS. We use a lot of different AWS services and not just the standard few, so you should be comfortable with serverless, managed, and containerised services.

• Record of successfully and consistently delivering critical path projects, on time and at scale

• Excellent communication, with a focus on doing this asynchronously across multiple timezones and countries

• Meticulous organisation and planning skills

• Experience of mentoring and coaching a team to perform at a high-level of quality

• Experience managing and supporting large-scale internet-facing distributed systems, for millions of customers

• Knowledge of security best-practices, security and CI/CD tooling, and methodologies

Bonus points

• Previous experience in leading technical delivery for small, highly-autonomous teams

• Track-record of effective collaboration with other teams and departments to drive holistic outcomes

• A proactive, innovative mindset with the ability to drive continuous improvement

• Previous experience working in a remote-first asynchronous team providing 24x7 support

• Familiarity with some of our tech stack:

• Typescript, python, or similar programming languages

• Terraform, or a similar infrastructure-as-code tool

• AWS services such as Lambda, IAM, EventBridge/SQS/SNS, DynamoDB, ECS, EKS

• Messaging queues, event-driven async processing or similar technologies

• Docker and Kubernetes

• Experience with Linux

Are you ready for a career with us? We want to ensure you have the right tools and environment to unleash your potential. If you have any accommodation requests, please contact us at [e-mail]. We’ll do our best to tailor the experience to your needs so you can feel comfortable, confident and be at your best!

Studies have shown that some groups of people, like women, are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet 100% of the job requirements. Whoever you are, if you like one of our jobs, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we’re looking for! At Kraken, we're creating a team of genuine, honest, empathetic people. Our people are our strongest asset and the unique skills and perspectives people bring to the team are the driving force of our success. As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute. We consider all applicants without regard to race, colour, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Please note that, in line with our current recruitment policy, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position; applicants must have the right to work in the country that they’re applying to, at the time of application.