Principal Software Engineer - Platform Engineering

Hackajob Ltd; Leeds; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Hackajob Ltd in Leeds seeks a senior Platform Engineer to shape a multi-year technical roadmap for a scalable, secure platform. You’ll mentor engineers, collaborate with product, security and business stakeholders, and define standards for responsible AI-enabled development and governance.

You’ll own production reliability, drive architectural standards, optimise cloud costs, and accelerate delivery with GitOps, CI/CD, observability tooling, and modern service meshes.

Qualifications

• Formal training or certification (e.g., BSc, CKAD, Google Associate Cloud Engineer, or AWS Certified Solutions Architect).
• Expert-level administration of a major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Mastery of Kubernetes administration and operator patterns.
• Strong cloud networking expertise across the OSI networking model.
• Strong proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies.
• Proven, hands-on experience in system design, development, testing, and operational stability.
• Advanced proficiency in modern language(s) (e.g., Go, Java, Kotlin).
• Demonstrated technical leadership and cross-team collaboration.
• Hands-on Security Engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience designing and leading adoption of agentic AI-enabled development practices across teams, including setting standards for human-in-the-loop validation, auditability/traceability of changes, and secure handling of sensitive data.
• Strong understanding of responsible AI use and control expectations in engineering workflows, including security/resiliency implications, data sensitivity, and risk-based governance; ability to influence senior technical leaders on safe scaling patterns and reuse.
• Advanced knowledge of CI/CD, application resiliency, and secure delivery (e.g., SLSA framework and GitOps).
• Deep experience with Observability and Monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OTEL).
• Expertise in performance optimisation of distributed systems (e.g., caching, network latency).
• Practical experience with Service Mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd, Cillium).
• Demonstrated success in Mentorship and Coaching both senior and junior engineers.
• Proven ability in Technical Roadmapping and defining long-term platform strategy.
• Stakeholder management and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Work with senior stakeholders to define and drive the multi-year technical roadmap and long-term architectural strategy for platform engineering, ensuring competitive advantage and scalability.
• Mentor and coach senior engineers across teams, elevating the technical bar and championing Software Engineering Communities of Practice.
• Serve as the key technical liaison for product, business, and security stakeholders, translating technical decisions into business impact.
• Lead the design and delivery of composable, secure, and scalable infrastructure systems and capabilities.
• Own the operational stability of production systems, automating recurring issues and establishing DORA/SLIs/SLOs metrics for continuous improvement.
• Drive architectural standards and best practices across the organisation, leading technical evaluations with internal and external partners.
• Champion FinOps principles to drive cloud cost optimisation and guide performance tuning of distributed systems.
• Architect and govern agentic AI-enabled engineering workflows using enterprise-authorized tools within the work environment to improve delivery speed, code quality, and operational outcomes at scale.
• Define guardrails for validation, security, resiliency, and reuse across teams.
• Apply knowledge of tools within the Software Development Life Cycle toolchain, including enterprise-authorized AI-assisted development and automation capabilities, to improve the value realized by automation at scale.

Skills

Kubernetes

IaC

CI/CD

Security

Observability

Performance tuning

AI security & governance

Leadership

Mentorship

Stakeholder management

Cloud architecture

Education

BSc or higher in a relevant field

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Kubernetes

Istio

Linkerd

Cilium

Prometheus

Grafana

OTEL

GitOps

Job description

Salary: £100,000 - 100,000 per year

Requirements

• Formal training or certification (e.g., BSc, CKAD, Google Associate Cloud Engineer, or AWS Certified Solutions Architect).
• Expert-level administration of a major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Mastery of Kubernetes administration and operator patterns.
• Strong cloud networking expertise across the OSI networking model.
• Strong proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies.
• Proven, hands-on experience in system design, development, testing, and operational stability.
• Advanced proficiency in modern language(s) (e.g., Go, Java, Kotlin).
• Demonstrated technical leadership and cross-team collaboration.
• Hands-on Security Engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience designing and leading adoption of agentic AI-enabled development practices across teams, including setting standards for human-in-the-loop validation, auditability/traceability of changes, and secure handling of sensitive data.
• Strong understanding of responsible AI use and control expectations in engineering workflows, including security/resiliency implications, data sensitivity, and risk-based governance; ability to influence senior technical leaders on safe scaling patterns and reuse.
• Advanced knowledge of CI/CD, application resiliency, and secure delivery (e.g., SLSA framework and GitOps).
• Deep experience with Observability and Monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OTEL).
• Expertise in performance optimisation of distributed systems (e.g., caching, network latency).
• Practical experience with Service Mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd, Cillium).
• Demonstrated success in Mentorship and Coaching both senior and junior engineers.
• Proven ability in Technical Roadmapping and defining long-term platform strategy.
• Stakeholder management and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Work with senior stakeholders to define and drive the multi-year technical roadmap and long-term architectural strategy for platform engineering, ensuring competitive advantage and scalability.
• Mentor and coach senior engineers across teams, elevating the technical bar and championing Software Engineering Communities of Practice.
• Serve as the key technical liaison for product, business, and security stakeholders, translating technical decisions into business impact.
• Lead the design and delivery of composable, secure, and scalable infrastructure systems and capabilities.
• Own the operational stability of production systems, automating recurring issues and establishing DORA/SLIs/SLOs metrics for continuous improvement.
• Drive architectural standards and best practices across the organisation, leading technical evaluations with internal and external partners.
• Champion FinOps principles to drive cloud cost optimisation and guide performance tuning of distributed systems.
• Architect and govern agentic AI-enabled engineering workflows using enterprise-authorized tools within the work environment to improve delivery speed, code quality, and operational outcomes at scale.
• Define guardrails for validation, security, resiliency, and reuse across teams.
• Apply knowledge of tools within the Software Development Life Cycle toolchain, including enterprise-authorized AI-assisted development and automation capabilities, to improve the value realized by automation at scale.

Technologies

• Agentic AI
• AI
• AWS
• Architect
• Azure
• CI/CD
• Cloud
• GCP
• GitOps
• Grafana
• Istio
• Support
• Java
• Kotlin
• Kubernetes
• Marketing
• Network
• Prometheus
• Security

More

hackajob is partnering directly with JPMorganChase to hire for this role. We are a new team created out of the successful launch of Chase in 2021, with a mission to create products that solve real-world problems and put customers at the center. We are people-first and value collaboration, curiosity, and commitment in an environment that nurtures skills and helps you realize your potential. As part of our Accelerator Business in the Platform Team, we focus on getting smart ideas into the hands of our customers, with opportunities to move between tribes and squads depending on strengths and interests. We value diversity of thought, experience, and background, and we are committed to building trusted, long-term partnerships and serving our clients through a first-class business in a first-class way. Our Corporate Functions teams support our broader business across finance, risk, human resources, and marketing, helping set our businesses, clients, customers, and employees up for success.

last updated 40 week of 2026