Platform Desktop Engineering Manager

G-Research; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance bonus

Lunch via Just Eat for Business

30 days annual leave

Company pension

Informal dress code

Healthcare & life assurance

Cycle-to-work

Monthly events

Job summary

G-Research, a leading quantitative finance company in London, seeks an experienced Platform Desktop Engineering Manager to lead the new Core Infrastructure team. You will own the platform desktop service, drive availability, security and evolution, and stay close to the build pipeline and provisioning tooling.

You will work with Linux, security and infrastructure teams to set standards, manage scope, and balance urgent work with longer‑term priorities, while mentoring engineers and influencing

Qualifications

• Experience leading an infrastructure, platform or endpoint engineering team.
• Hands-on Linux expertise including package management, performance troubleshooting and log analysis.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines for OS image creation (Dagger, Packer, Jenkins or Bash).
• Experience provisioning bare metal and VM at scale, ideally with OpenStack and Ironic.
• Security expertise including vulnerability and patch management.
• Good stakeholder management with ability to influence priorities across teams.
• Experience owning and improving production services end to end.

Responsibilities

• Hire, onboard and develop Platform Desktop Engineers with clear objectives and career planning.
• Manage service performance including availability, estate health, patching and user experience.
• Own the support model: SLAs, incident management and escalation paths.
• Balance operational demands with engineering work and longer‑term priorities.
• Deliver the estate roadmap across image builds, tooling and hardware refreshes.
• Oversee change management, communications and post‑incident improvements.
• Define and report metrics for service performance and estate health.
• Manage capacity, budget and hardware lifecycle across physical and virtual resources.
• Collaborate with Linux Engineering, Security, Identity and other teams to manage dependencies.
• Support joiner/mover/leaver processes with HR.

Skills

Leadership

Linux expertise

CI/CD for OS images

OpenStack & Ironic

Security & patch management

Stakeholder management

Production services ownership

Tools

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 visbility 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?

The ideal candidate will have the following skills and experience:

• 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

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

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