Platform Engineer

The Key Support Services; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Work‑life balance

Training and development

Generous holiday allowance

Flexible hours

Holiday buy/sell

Enhanced maternity pay

Free breakfast, fruit and drinks

Regular socials

Job summary

The Key is seeking a Platform Engineer to design, operate, and continuously optimise a cloud-based platform. You will manage core cloud infrastructure, improve observability and security, and champion AI-driven coding workflows to boost developer experience across local and remote teams.

Responsibilities include building scalable CI/CD pipelines, automating tasks, and driving incident response with durable post‑mortem fixes. Strong communication and self‑organisation are essential.

Qualifications

• 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).
• 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.

Responsibilities

• Design, operate, and optimise scalable cloud infrastructure using IaC.
• Improve reliability, performance, and security of the platform in GCP/GKE.
• Own monitoring, alerting, and observability across test and production environments.
• Lead incident response investigations and implement durable fixes.
• Build, maintain, and optimise CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployment workflows.
• Automate manual tasks and integrate AI tooling to boost developer experience.

Skills

Terraform

GCP

GKE

CI/CD

GitHub

Observability

AI tooling

Security best practices

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

Requirements

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

Benefits

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.