Platform Engineer

The Key Support Services; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible hours

Regular socials

Free breakfast, fruit and drinks

Generous holiday allowance

Training and support

Job summary

The Key is seeking a Platform Engineer to design, operate, and continuously optimise a cloud-based platform for high reliability, scalability, and performance. You will automate engineering processes, improve security, and integrate AI agentic coding workflows to support seamless software delivery across environments.

Responsibilities include managing IaC, evolving GCP/GKE, building robust CI/CD pipelines, and driving observability and incident response.

Qualifications

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tooling (Terraform).
• Designing and managing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) environments.
• Minimum of 2 years designing and managing robust CI/CD platforms.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience using GitHub or equivalent version control systems.
• Genuine enthusiasm for AI coding agents and leveraging automation tooling.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills tailored for technical and non-technical audiences.
• High level of conscientiousness, self-organisation, and ability to coordinate multi-stakeholder projects locally and remotely.

Responsibilities

• Design, operate, and optimise the organisation's cloud-based platform for reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Own monitoring, incident management, and observability across prod and test environments; drive post-incident fixes.
• Build, maintain, and optimise CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployment workflows.

Skills

IaC tooling

CI/CD automation

Cloud platform proficiency

Strong communicator

AI tooling enthusiasm

Tools

Terraform

GCP

GKE

GitHub

Job description

The company

The Key is the country’s most trusted provider of knowledge and know-how to education leaders determined to make a difference. We provide authoritative, up-to-the-minute sector intelligence, tools, services and resources that give leaders the knowledge to act.

The role

The Platform Engineer designs, operates, and continuously optimises the organisation's cloud-based platform to guarantee high reliability, scalability, and performance. Acting as an operational anchor and developer experience champion, the role automates critical engineering processes, drives system security, and embeds cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) agentic coding workflows. By managing core cloud infrastructure and proactive observability, the position enables seamless software delivery and minimises operational downtime across test and production environments.

Cloud Infrastructure & Architecture

• Engineer, plan, and deliver scalable cloud infrastructure upgrades and optimisations using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools.
• Continuously optimise the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and wider cloud environment to boost efficiency, performance, and overall system resilience.
• Incident Management & Observability
  • Own monitoring, alerting, and observability frameworks across production and test environments to proactively identify system defects.
  • Lead incident response investigations, execute technical resolutions, and implement post-incident fixes to permanently prevent issue recurrence.
• Developer Experience & CI/CD Support
  • Build, maintain, and optimise software delivery and CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployment workflows.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve complex operational issues for developers, actively seeking ways to enhance overall developer experience and efficiency.
• Automation & AI Tooling Integration
  • Automate manual, repetitive operational tasks to reduce technical debt and maximise organisational efficiency.
  • Leverage AI agentic coding tools daily for incident investigation and operational automation, extending internal agent capabilities to benefit the broader engineering department.
• Platform Security & Compliance
  • Enforce robust security practices across the platform to safeguard infrastructure in line with industry standards.
  • Foster a proactive culture of security awareness and risk mitigation within the engineering team.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Communicate platform changes, technical concepts, and updates clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Coordinate complex operational projects across local and remote teams with high conscientiousness and structured self-organisation.

Key success indicators

• Infrastructure availability and uptime across Google Cloud Platform services.
• Reduction in Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR) system incidents.
• Percentage of operational tasks automated and successfully integrated into AI agentic workflows.
• Measurable improvement in software delivery deployment frequency and CI/CD pipeline execution times.
• Developer satisfaction scores regarding internal platform reliability and developer tooling.

Required experience and profile

• Demonstrated proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tooling, preferably Terraform.
• Practical experience designing, operating, and managing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) environments.
• Minimum of 2 years of hands-on experience in designing and managing robust CI/CD platforms.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience using GitHub or equivalent version control systems.
• Genuine enthusiasm for working with AI coding agents and leveraging advanced automation tooling.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills tailored for technical and non-technical audiences.
• High level of conscientiousness, self-organisation, and ability to coordinate multi-stakeholder projects locally and remotely.

Desirable

• Working knowledge of and exposure to the ISO27001 information security standard.
• Hands-on knowledge of database platforms such as MongoDB and PostgreSQL.
• Deep technical understanding of containerisation technologies.
  

We place huge importance on caring for and developing our people. If you join us you can expect a good work-life balance and the training and support you need to succeed in your role and continue to progress. We are a socially conscious company, but one that also likes to have fun. We offer a generous holiday allowance, flexible hours, buying and selling holiday, enhanced maternity pay, free breakfast, fruit, and drinks, regular socials and much more.