Platform Engineering Manager

Marks & Spencer Plc; Romford; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

20% discount for household

Competitive holiday allowance

Discretionary bonus schemes

Strong pension and life assurance

Structured induction and training

M&S Choices portal

Family leave policies

Wellbeing support

Volunteer day

Job summary

Marks & Spencer Plc is seeking a Platform Engineering Manager to lead connectivity platforms across the M&S estate. You will own operational integrity, drive automation, and embed observability to improve resilience and service performance.

The role entails technical authority for connectivity services supporting a large estate, including outsourced NOC oversight and partner management. Strong leadership and collaboration across stakeholders are essential.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience operating enterprise-scale network platforms.
• Deep expertise in Cisco ACI, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Juniper Mist and Azure Networking.
• Strong automation skills with Terraform and Python.
• Proven leadership and collaboration across stakeholders.
• Experience with observability and Site Reliability Engineering.

Responsibilities

• Own operational integrity, reliability and continual improvement of connectivity platforms across the M&S estate.
• Drive automation and Infrastructure as Code to improve consistency, scalability and efficiency.
• Embed observability and Site Reliability Engineering practices to strengthen resilience and service performance.
• Reduce operational overhead and enhance service quality through proactive engineering and continuous improvement.
• Lead managed service providers, owning supplier governance, performance oversight and service improvement initiatives.

Skills

Enterprise network platforms

Cisco ACI

Palo Alto

Fortinet

Juniper Mist

Azure Networking

Terraform

Python

GitHub workflows

Observability

Leadership

Tools

Terraform

Python

GitHub Actions

Job description

Summary

The Platform Engineering Manager is responsible for providing technical leadership and operational authority for M&S connectivity platforms, ensuring services remain secure, stable, resilient and continuously improving.

All the details

The Platform Engineering Manager is responsible for providing technical leadership and operational authority for M&S connectivity platforms, ensuring services remain secure, stable, resilient and continuously improving.

The role has technical authority for operational connectivity services supporting 1,000 stores, 20 logistics sites, 2 datacentres and Azure environments. Provides technical oversight of outsourced NOC services and managed partners.

What You’ll Do

• Own the operational integrity, reliability and continual improvement of connectivity platforms across the M&S estate.
• Drive automation and Infrastructure as Code to improve consistency, scalability and operational efficiency.
• Embed observability and Site Reliability Engineering practices to strengthen resilience and service performance.
• Reduce operational overhead and enhance service quality through proactive engineering and continuous improvement.
• Lead managed service providers, owning supplier governance, performance oversight and service improvement initiatives.

Who You Are

• Extensive experience operating enterprise-scale network platforms.
• Deep technical expertise across Cisco ACI, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Juniper Mist and Microsoft Azure Networking.
• Strong automation and software engineering skills, including Terraform, Python and GitHub-based workflows.
• Excellent leadership qualities, with a strong understanding of observability and Site Reliability Engineering principles.
• Proven ability to influence outcomes and collaborate effectively across multiple stakeholder groups.

What’s in it for you?

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone’s welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you’d benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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