Senior Platform Engineer

Trades Workforce Solutions; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A recruitment agency is looking for an experienced Senior Platform Engineer to join a higher education client. This hybrid role requires a minimum of 5 years in Platform Engineering with strong OCI experience. The successful candidate will design and maintain cloud platforms, manage OCI security and compliance, and collaborate with academic stakeholders. Candidates should possess strong problem-solving and communication skills, with proficiency in GITLAB and Terraform being essential. This role also involves mentoring junior engineers and supporting DevOps practices.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years of proven industry experience in Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Infrastructure Engineering.
• Strong hands-on experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in production environments.
• Strong proficiency in GITLAB & Terraform or similar Infrastructure as Code tools.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain OCI-based cloud platforms supporting HE systems.
• Architect and manage OCI networking including VCNs and Load Balancers.
• Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform.

Skills

Platform Engineering

Cloud Engineering

Infrastructure Engineering

OCI experience

GITLAB

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Problem-solving

Communication skills

Job description

Duration: 6 Months

Location: Manchester & remote (hybrid)

IR35 Status: Inside

Start: ASAP

Role Overview:

We're currently recruiting for an experienced Senior Platform Engineer with excellent OCI experience (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) for our higher education client.

This role is to support and evolve the clients cloud platform services and this role is critical in enabling secure, scalable and resilient platforms for teaching, learning, research and administrative systems.

This role will involve you working closely with academic researchers and application teams and their central IT, to deliver reliable cloud platforms that will support their student systems, research workloads and institutional data; whilst ensuring compliance with higher education security and governance standards,

Essential Skills & Experience Required

As the Senior Platform Engineer (OCI) you will possess the following:

• Minimum 5+ years of proven industry experience in Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Infrastructure Engineering.
• Strong hands-on experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in production environments.
• Solid experience with:
  • OCI Compute, Storage (Block, Object, File), and Networking
  • OCI IAM, Compartments, Policies, Security Lists, and NSGs
• Strong proficiency in GITLAB & Terraform or similar Infrastructure as Code tools.
• Oracle Database awareness / experience.
• Experience with container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes (OCI OKE desirable).
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and tooling .
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to support diverse stakeholders, including academic and administrative users.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Desirable / Nice to Have

• OCI certifications (e.g., OCI Architect Professional ).
• Experience working in a higher education or public sector environment.
• Exposure to research computing, data platforms, or HPC workloads .
• Knowledge of security, privacy, and compliance frameworks relevant to universities.
• Experience with hybrid or multi-cloud environments .

Responsibilities include:

• Design, build, and maintain OCI-based cloud platforms supporting HE systems, research computing, and student-facing services.
• Architect and manage OCI networking including VCNs, subnets, DRGs, Load Balancers, VPN/FastConnect, and network security controls.
• Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform to ensure consistency, repeatability, and auditability.
• Enable platforms for research workloads , including data-intensive and high-performance computing use cases (where applicable).
• Collaborate with academic faculties, research groups, and IT teams to deliver fit-for-purpose cloud solutions.
• Implement and enforce cloud security, governance, and compliance , including IAM, compartment design, data protection, and tagging standards.
• Support DevOps and CI/CD practices to enable application development teams across the organisation
• Monitor platform performance, availability, and costs, ensuring effective cost control and budget transparency .
• Provide advanced troubleshooting and incident support for critical systems.
• Document platform standards, architectures, and operational procedures.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to skills development within the IT team.
• Participate in On-Call support and planned maintenance activities as required.

If this role is of interest then please email your CV to: [e-mail]