Platform Engineer

Canada Life; Watford; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Canada Life UK is seeking a Platform Engineer to drive cloud-enabled data platform initiatives with hands-on Azure, Databricks, and IaC expertise. You will contribute across the product lifecycle, focusing on automation, secure deployment, and scalable platform governance.

You’ll work with Terraform/Bicep, Azure DevOps, and a mix of on‑prem and cloud resources to enable delivery teams while promoting best practices in security and reliability.

Qualifications

• Platform/DevOps engineering experience with enterprise data platforms.
• Strong scripting in PowerShell, Python and Bash.
• Experience provisioning resources in cloud using IaC (e.g., Terraform, Bicep) and cloud services.
• Experience with Azure Databricks and Azure Data Factory or similar governance tech.
• Familiar with CI/CD tooling and secure, automated delivery pipelines.
• Experience in regulated or security-conscious environments a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain cloud-based and on-prem applications using CI/CD pipelines.
• Develop automation scripts for deployment and maintenance of applications.
• Monitor performance, optimize, and ensure security and compliance.
• Provide guidance and best practices for product engineering teams.
• Document runbooks, standards, and implementation guidance.
• Assist onboarding of teams and workloads onto the platform.

Skills

Azure

Databricks

IaC

CI/CD

PowerShell

Python

Bash

Security governance

Tools

Terraform

Bicep

Azure DevOps

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Job description

Canada Life UK looks after the retirement, investment and protection needs of individuals, families and companies. We help to build better futures for our customers, our intermediaries and our employees by operating as a modern, agile and welcoming organisation.

Part of our parent company Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life UK has operated in the United Kingdom since 1903. We have hundreds of respected and supported employees committed to doing the right thing for our customers and colleagues.

Canada Life UK is transforming to create a more customer-focused business by providing our customers with expertise on financial and tax planning, offering home finance and annuities propositions, and providing collective fund solutions to third party customers.

Job Purpose

We are looking for a Platform Engineer with hands‑on Azure, Databricks, and IaC experience, to support our transformation and the future growth of the Canada Life UK business. We are on a journey of simplifying our IT estate, removing our legacy systems and delivering innovative solutions through Cloud adoption, AI and expanding our digital services.

As a member of the CLUK Product Engineering team, you will be involved in every stage of the product lifecycle from conception, design, implementation, testing, through to operational support.

With automation at the heart of everything we are doing, you should have a strong hands‑on understanding of CI/CD tools, to build secure and reliable applications.
We are looking for Azure experience, though strong experience in any cloud is welcome.

This role would suit someone with a background in platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, or enterprise data platform support, particularly where Azure, Databricks, Azure Data Factory automation (or equivalent technology), and operational governance are central to the work.

This is not a narrow support role or a generic cloud engineering position. The engineer will work across the practical foundations of an enterprise data platform, helping ensure it remains secure, scalable, supportable, well governed, and easy for delivery teams to use.

Key responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain applications in Cloud and On-prem, through CI/CD pipelines using Terraform and Bicep
• Develop automation scripts for deployment and maintenance of applications
• Monitor system performance and health; identify opportunities for optimization
• Ensure compliance with all security policies and standards
• Ensure platform components are reliable, maintainable, and safe to promote into production
• Investigate platform issues, security findings, and technical debt items, then drive them to resolution
• Participate in technical discussions and provide recommendations for improvements
• Maintain technical documentation, runbooks, standards, and implementation guidance
• Helping onboard users, teams, services, and workloads onto the platform.
• Provide guidance to less experienced Product Engineering team members to help them learn and develop their own skills

Essential skills needed

• Application support within a Financial Services context (SaaS, PaaS, Cloud, On-Prem hosted applications)
• Relevant experience as a Platform or DevOps Engineer working with enterprise data platforms
• Highly proficient in scripting languages like Powershell, Python, Bash.
• Strong experience in provisioning and modifying resources hosted in a cloud-based environment using infrastructure as code techniques e.g. Azure/AWS/GCP and related services
• Experience supporting Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory or a similar technology to govern an enterprise data platform
• Demonstrates following sound engineering practices, especially utilising automation tools, working knowledge of CI/CD pipeline tools such as Azure DevOps, Octopus Deploy, Jenkins or GitHub Actions (or similar)
• Experience with secrets management, secure configuration, and security remediation practices
• Used to working within Agile frameworks and can coach others to do the same
• Good understanding of firewalls, private cloud connectivity, DNS, routing, and service integration patterns
• Excellent problem-solving and troubleshooting skills
• Effective communication and enjoys collaboration with cross-functional teams
• Ability to work both independently and in a team environment

• Experience of migrating on-premises infrastructure to the cloud and understanding the challenges involved
• Familiarity with cloud security best practices, identity and access management (IAM), and encryption techniques
• Microsoft Azure certifications are a plus
• Experience working in regulated or security-conscious enterprise environments
• Experience with monitoring and observability tooling such as Datadog or similar platforms

Benefits of working at Canada Life

We believe in recognising and rewarding our people, so we offer a competitive salary and benefits package that’s regularly reviewed. As a Canada Life UK colleague, you’ll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive reward package including a generous pension and bonus scheme, along with, income protection, private medical insurance and life assurance. We have a fantastic number of other benefits and support services as well as regular personal and professional development.

How we work at Canada Life

Our culture is unique and incredibly important to us. We care about doing the right thing for our people, customers and community and helping others to build better futures. Our blueprint behaviours shape and influence how we work, and are central to the relationships we have with others. Every day we are encouraged to be more curious, own the outcome, face into things together and find a way forward.

We want colleagues to have rewarding careers with us so we invest in the development of our people, technology and workplaces. That’s why we offer a range of training, flexible working and opportunities to grow and develop.

Diversity and inclusion

Building an inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce where everyone can feel they belong and achieve their potential regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other characteristic is a key commitment for us. We are proud of the progress we’re making in DEI, and we continue for it to be a significant focus.

“At Canada Life we believe in the power of great people from different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives coming together to build better futures. Emerging talent is crucial to our growth and creating an environment that continues to inspire us all.” Nick Harding, Chief People Officer, Canada Life UK

We appreciate that everyone has different work and life responsibilities. We’re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements, including part time, for any of our roles should this be a requirement for you.

Location

Watford, England, United Kingdom