Platform Engineer (Outside IR35)

Talent Locker Ltd; Farnborough; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A security-focused engineering firm located in Farnborough is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer for a crucial contract role. The engineer will lead the modernization of complex platform environments vital for national security. Candidates should have robust experience in Kubernetes and IaC, and familiarity with AWS, Azure, or GCP is essential. This hands-on position entails improving deployment processes and supporting operational readiness while working in a regulated environment. Successful applicants will need to obtain SC Level security clearance.

Qualifications

• Strong background in Platform Engineering, DevOps, or Infrastructure development.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, IaC, and major cloud platforms.
• Experience in regulated environments with security considerations.

Responsibilities

• Develop and refine platform services across hybrid environments.
• Improve and standardise automated deployment processes.
• Enhance observability tooling and contribute to operations.
• Support incident response and troubleshooting.

Skills

Kubernetes

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

CI/CD pipelines

Terraform

Ansible

Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Incident management

Education

Cloud or DevOps certifications

Job description

Contract Senior Platform Engineer

Outside IR35 | Defence & Security | Hampshire

Talent Locker is partnering with a specialist organisation operating at the forefront of national security initiatives, recruiting for a contract Senior Platform Engineer to join their team and step into this high-impact role to strengthen and modernise complex platform environments that support sensitive operational systems.

This is a hands on role that would suit an engineer who is confident leading technical direction while delivering practical, scalable solutions across cloud and on-prem infrastructure. PLEASE NOTE - The nature of this project will require the work to be carried out onsite and successful candidates will be required to be security cleared (SC Level) prior to appointment.

The day to day assignment:

• Develop and refine platform services across hybrid environments, ensuring security, stability and maintainability
• Improve and standardise automated deployment processes, helping teams deliver faster and with greater consistency
• Enhance observability tooling and contribute to a proactive operations
• Work alongside reliability and operational teams to maintain uptime and performance across critical workloads
• Support incident response, troubleshooting and longer term service improvements
• Provide expert guidance on platform patterns, tooling choices and best practice engineering approaches
• Share knowledge with wider engineering teams, supporting skill uplift and consistent delivery standards
• Input into architectural decisions and technical governance
• Explore emerging technologies and assess how they could strengthen platform resilience and capability

The successful applicant will have a strong background in Platform Engineering or similar (DevOps, Infrastructure development roles etc) as well as hands on and demonstrable working experience with Kubernetes, IaC, CI/CD pipelines and major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP).

The Platform Engineer will also be confident delivering within hybrid environments, navigating secure, regulated technical landscapes and air gapped environments.

It would be highly advantageous for candidates to have worked in a similar environment (Defence, Security or similar) and have a sound understanding of security considerations, compliance expectations and operational tooling.

Other key experience that the Platform Engineer will demonstrate should include:

• Cloud or DevOps certifications
• Experience with Terraform, Ansible or similar automation frameworks
• Familiarity with structured governance or architectural review processes
• Working knowledge of incident management and complex operational support models

To apply or to find our more information, please get in touch with Emma on [e-mail]