Lead Site Reliability Engineer

McLaren Automotive Ltd; Woking; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

Enhanced company pension scheme

Discretionary annual bonus

Private medical insurance

Life assurance benefit

Sabbatical options after two years

Discounts on shopping

Parental leave policies

Well-being initiatives

Job summary

A leading automotive technology company in the UK is seeking a Lead Site Reliability Engineer to design and scale infrastructure systems focusing on reliability, performance, and security. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), Infrastructure as Code, and observability tools. This role involves mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional engineering excellence. Join us to take part in creating visionary automotive products.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of service reliability within a fast-paced tech organization.
• Familiarity with compliance and governance frameworks (e.g., ISO, SOC2).
• Strategic thinker with a proactive approach to reliability and scalability.
• Resilient under pressure, with strong incident management skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and scale infrastructure systems with reliability and security.
• Lead infrastructure strategy ensuring resiliency and performance.
• Drive Infrastructure as Code adoption at scale.
• Define observability systems and set SLIs/SLOs.
• Mentor engineering teams on best practices.

Skills

Cloud-native infrastructure knowledge

AWS expertise

Terraform proficiency

Observability tools knowledge

Docker experience

Kubernetes orchestration

Infrastructure security principles

Incident management skills

Tools

Prometheus

Grafana

Ansible

OpenTelemetry

Git

Argo

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’s 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

• 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 and DevOps Strategy
• 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
• Own CI/CD pipeline architecture for distributed systems (e.g. Git, Argo)
• 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 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 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’ll Do for You

• 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.