Platform Desktop Engineering Manager

Barlowe LLP; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Annual discretionary bonus

30 days leave

Company pension contributions

Healthcare

Cycle-to-work

Social events

Job summary

G-Research is building a world-class platform to amplify team ideas from our London HQ. You will lead Platform Desktop Engineering within Core Infrastructure, owning availability, security and evolution of the platform desktop service.

This hands-on management role requires deep Linux knowledge and close collaboration with Linux Eng, Security and other teams. You will hire and mentor engineers, shape the estate roadmap, and define metrics for visibility while balancing security with pragmatic

Qualifications

• Experience leading an infrastructure, platform or endpoint engineering team.
• Strong hands-on Linux expertise, including package management, performance troubleshooting and log analysis.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines for OS image creation using Dagger, Packer, Jenkins or Bash.
• Experience supporting bare metal and VM provisioning at scale, ideally using OpenStack and Ironic.
• Strong understanding of enterprise security, including vulnerability and patch management.
• Sound judgement balancing security best practice with pragmatic risk decisions.

Responsibilities

• Hiring, onboarding and developing Platform Desktop Engineers with objectives and career development.
• Managing service performance, availability, estate health, patching, provisioning and user experience.
• Owning the support model, SLAs, incident management and escalation paths.
• Balancing operational demands with engineering work and long-term priorities.
• Delivering the estate roadmap across image builds, tooling, automation and hardware refreshes.
• Overseeing change management, communications and post-incident improvements.
• Defining and reporting metrics for service performance and estate health.
• Managing capacity, budget and hardware lifecycle across resources.
• Collaborating with Linux Engineering, Security, Identity and partner teams.

Skills

Platform leadership

Linux expertise

CI/CD pipelines

OpenStack & Ironic

Security posture

Vendor management

Stakeholder management

Production services

Tools

OpenStack

Ironic

Dagger

Packer

Jenkins

Bash

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

The Platform Desktop Engineering team is a new team within Core Infrastructure, responsible for the platform desktop. As Platform Desktop Engineering Manager, you will build and lead the team, taking accountability for the availability, security and evolution of the platform desktop service. This is a hands‑on management roles requiring strong technical knowledge of Linux environments. You will stay close to the build pipeline, provisioning tooling and security posture, enabling you to review technical decisions, assess risk and hold partner teams and vendors to account. The role had a broad remit, spanning image builds, provisioning, security, monitoring and hardware. You will establish the team’s standards and priorities from the ground up, protecting engineers’ focus and making clear decisions about scope. Working closely with Linux Engineering, Security and wider infrastructure teams, you will foster a collaborative environment where engineers are encouraged to challenge, contribute ideas and act on them.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

• Hiring, onboarding and developing Platform Desktop Engineers, including objectives, feedback and career development
• Managing service performance, including availability, estate health, patching , provisioning and user experience
• Owning the support model, including service levels, request and incident management and escalation paths
• Balancing operational demands with planned engineering work and longer‑term priorities
• Delivering the estate roadmap across image builds, provisioning tooling, automation and hardware refreshes
• Overseeing change management, communications and post‑incident improvements
• Defining and reporting metrics that provide visibility of service performance and estate health
• Managing capacity, budget and hardware lifecycle across physical and virtual resources
• Working with Linux Engineering, Security, Identity, Tech Support and other partner teams to manage dependencies and escalations
• Supporting joiner, mover and leaver processes in partnership with HR

Who are we looking for?

• Experience leading an infrastructure, platform or endpoint engineering team
• Strong hands‑on Linux expertise, including package management, performance troubleshooting and log analysis
• Good understanding of CI/CD pipelines for OS image creation using tools such as Dagger, Packer, Jenkins or Bash
• Experience supporting bare metal and VM provisioning at scale, ideally using OpenStack and Ironic
• Strong understanding of enterprise security, including vulnerability and patch management
• Sound judgement, balancing security best practice with pragmatic risk‑based decisions
• Understanding of hardware provisioning and lifecycle management, including diagnostics and vendor management
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence priorities across teams
• Experience owning and improving production services end to end

G-Research is committed to cultivating and preserving an inclusive work environment. We are an ideas‑driven business and we place great value on diversity of experience and opinions. We want to ensure that applicants receive a recruitment experience that enables them to perform at their best. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation please let us know in the relevant section.

At G-Research, we are passionate about the intersection of finance, technology, and the future. We offer a dynamic, flexible and highly stimulating culture where world‑beating ideas are cultivated and rewarded. We are proud to employ some of the best people in their field and to nurture their talent in our collaborative working environment.

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