Lead Site Reliability Engineer

McLaren Racing; Old Woking; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading automotive technology firm in Old Woking is seeking a Lead Site Reliability Engineer to architect and operate complex infrastructure environments. This role involves driving infrastructure strategies for reliability and performance while mentoring engineering teams and promoting a culture of automation. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in cloud platforms, Infrastructure as Code, and observability tools. Attractive benefits and a commitment to equal opportunity are offered.

Benefits

Structured career development framework

25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday

Enhanced company pension scheme

Discretionary annual bonus award

Private medical insurance

Life assurance benefit

Generous parental leave policies

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of cloud-native infrastructure and service reliability within a fast-paced technology organisation.
• Expertise in cloud platforms (AWS preferred, Azure beneficial).
• Deep knowledge of observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry).

Responsibilities

• Lead infrastructure strategy ensuring resiliency, performance, and scalability.
• Define and implement observability systems with key tools.
• Mentor engineering teams on containerization and best practices.

Skills

Cloud-native infrastructure

Incident management

Automation

Mentorship

Resilience under pressure

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Prometheus

Grafana

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

We are looking for an accomplished Lead Site Reliability Engineer with deep technical expertise, proven operational leadership, and a strategic mindset. You'll take ownership of designing and scaling infrastructure systems with reliability, performance, and security baked in from day one. This role is built for an SRE leader who is driven to evolve systems architecture, mentor engineers, and steer the long-term reliability posture of a scaling technology organisation. You'll collaborate closely with product and platform teams to define standards and drive cross-functional engineering excellence.

What You'll Do

Infrastructure Architecture & Leadership

• Architect and operate complex infrastructure environments, with a preference for AWS (Azure experience also valued)
• Lead infrastructure strategy—ensuring resiliency, performance, and scalability across services
• Drive Infrastructure as Code adoption using Terraform, Ansible, or similar tools at scale

Reliability Engineering & Observability

• Define and implement robust observability systems with tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and OpenTelemetry
• Set and enforce SLIs/SLOs across key services, and lead incident response and operational review practices
• Build and maintain automation frameworks for self-healing, failover, and recovery operations

CI/CD & DevOps Strategy

• Own CI/CD pipeline architecture for distributed systems (e.g., Git, Argo)
• Mentor engineering teams on containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes), ensuring best practices across environments
• Guide secrets, configuration, and environment strategy across staging and production ecosystems

Security, Compliance & Governance

• Define infrastructure security patterns including IAM, encryption, and segmentation strategies
• Champion compliance‑aligned engineering processes and governance frameworks

Technical Mentorship & Cross‑Team Influence

• Mentor SREs and DevOps engineers, fostering technical growth and reliability‑first thinking
• Influence architecture reviews and operational readiness across teams
• Promote a culture of reliability, automation, and continuous improvement across the engineering team

What You’ll Bring

Business Knowledge

• Strong understanding of cloud‑native infrastructure and service reliability within a fast‑paced technology organisation
• Familiarity with compliance and governance frameworks relevant to cloud operations (e.g., ISO, SOC2)

Essential Functional / Technical Skills

• Expertise in cloud platforms (AWS preferred, Azure beneficial)
• Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible)
• Deep knowledge of observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (Git, Argo), containerisation (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Strong grasp of infrastructure security principles (IAM, encryption, segmentation)

Strategic thinker with a proactive approach to reliability and scalability. Influential mentor and collaborator across engineering disciplines. Resilient under pressure, with strong incident management and problem‑solving skills. Advocates for automation, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence.

What We Offer

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.

Benefits

• 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