Platform Desktop Engineer

G-Research; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Annual discretionary bonus

Lunch provided

30 days annual leave

9% pension contributions

Healthcare

Cycle-to-work

Monthly events

Job summary

G-Research, based in London, seeks a Platform Desktop Engineer to own the Linux image pipeline, provisioning tooling, and security for the estate. You will work with Linux Engineering, Security and infrastructure teams to deliver robust desktop platforms across the research environment.

You will contribute to image builds, provisioning automation, monitoring, and incident response, while collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve reliability and scale.

Qualifications

• Strong Linux administration skills, including package management, filesystems, permissions, and networking.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across logs, CPU, memory, I/O and network performance.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines for OS image creation.
• Python scripting skills, with the ability to make safe changes to internal tooling.
• Strong understanding of security best practice, with judgment to balance risk and practical requirements.
• Experience with monitoring and dashboards, using data to assess system health.
• Experience with OpenStack and Ironic for bare metal and VM provisioning at scale.
• Understanding of hardware provisioning and lifecycle, including BMC and lights-out management.
• Experience supporting technical users in a live environment.
• Excellent communication skills, with ability to set expectations and explain technical trade-offs.
• A calm, methodical approach to incidents and escalation.

Responsibilities

• Maintaining the OS image build pipeline using Dagger, Packer, Jenkins and Bash
• Operating and developing Python-based provisioning tooling across OpenStack and Ironic, troubleshooting bare metal and VM provisioning issues
• Managing estate security, including certificate lifecycle, vulnerability remediation and patching
• Managing changes through testing, staged rollouts, communications and rollback where required
• Monitoring estate health, availability and patching, maintaining dashboards and resolving configuration issues
• Providing user support, resolving requests and incidents escalated from first line
• Supporting joiner, mover and leaver processes in partnership with HR and hiring managers
• Managing hardware provisioning and lifecycle, including diagnostics, firmware, warranties and RMAs
• Contributing to capacity planning across physical and virtual resources
• Supporting incident response and driving remedial actions through to completion
• Escalating complex issues to Linux Engineering and other teams with a clear technical diagnosis

Skills

Linux administration

Troubleshooting

CI/CD pipelines

Python scripting

Security best practices

Monitoring dashboards

OpenStack

Ironic

Hardware provisioning

User support

Communication skills

Incident response

Tools

Dagger

Packer

Jenkins

Job description

We tackle the most complex problems in quantitative finance, by bringing scientific clarity to financial complexity.

From our London HQ, we unite world-class researchers and engineers in an environment that values deep exploration and methodical execution — because the best ideas take time to evolve. Together we’re building a world-class platform to amplify our teams’ most powerful ideas.

As part of our engineering team, you’ll shape the platforms and tools that drive high-impact research – designing systems that scale, accelerate discovery and support innovation across the firm.

Take the next step in your career.

The role

Platform Desktop Engineering is a new team within Core Infrastructure, responsible for the platform desktop.

As a Platform Desktop Engineer, you will be responsible for the Linux image used across the estate, the pipeline that builds it and the tooling that provisions it. You will also support the day-to-day health of the machines it runs on.

You will bring strong Linux skills, a pragmatic approach to automation and the ability to work directly with the teams who depend on the desktop.

This is a small, newly formed team with a broad remit spanning image builds, provisioning, security, monitoring and hardware. You will have the opportunity to grow across these areas, working closely with Linux Engineering, Security and wider infrastructure teams in a collaborative environment where engineers are encouraged to contribute ideas and act on them.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

• Maintaining the OS image build pipeline using Dagger, Packer, Jenkins and Bash
• Operating and developing Python-based provisioning tooling across OpenStack and Ironic, troubleshooting bare metal and VM provisioning issues
• Managing estate security, including certificate lifecycle, vulnerability remediation and patching
• Managing changes through testing, staged rollouts, communications and rollback where required
• Monitoring estate health, availability and patching, maintaining dashboards and resolving configuration issues
• Providing user support, resolving requests and incidents escalated from first line
• Supporting joiner, mover and leaver processes in partnership with HR and hiring managers
• Managing hardware provisioning and lifecycle, including diagnostics, firmware, warranties and RMAs
• Contributing to capacity planning across physical and virtual resources
• Supporting incident response and driving remedial actions through to completion
• Escalating complex issues to Linux Engineering and other teams with a clear technical diagnosis

Who are we looking for?

The ideal candidate will have the following skills and experience:

• Strong Linux administration skills, including package management, filesystems, permissions, and networking
• Strong troubleshooting skills across logs, CPU, memory, I/O and network performance
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines for OS image creation
• Python scripting skills, with the ability to make safe changes to internal tooling
• Strong understanding of security best practice, with judgment to balance risk and practical requirements
• Experience with monitoring and dashboards, using data to assess system health
• Experience with OpenStack and Ironic for bare metal and VM provisioning at scale
• Understanding of hardware provisioning and lifecycle, including BMC and lights-out management
• Experience supporting technical users in a live environment
• Excellent communication skills, with ability to set expectations and explain technical trade-offs
• A calm, methodical approach to incidents and escalation

Why join us?

• Highly competitive compensation plus annual discretionary bonus
• Lunch provided (via Just Eat for Business) and dedicated barista bar
• 30 days’ annual leave
• 9% company pension contributions
• Informal dress code and excellent work/life balance
• Comprehensive healthcare and life assurance
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Monthly company events

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