Senior Platform Engineer

Ellison Institute of Technology; Oxford; On-site; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading research institution in Oxford is seeking a skilled Platform Engineer to architect and run cloud solutions that enable scientific breakthroughs. The ideal candidate has substantial experience with cloud platforms and Kubernetes management, alongside a passion for automating operational processes. The organization offers a collaborative environment and comprehensive benefits, encouraging innovation and a shared commitment to excellence.

Benefits

Enhanced holiday pay

Pension

Life Assurance

Income Protection

Private Medical Insurance

Hospital Cash Plan

Therapy Services

Perk Box

Electric Car Scheme

Qualifications

• Proven experience in platform engineering with a track record of automating processes.
• Passionate about introducing and automating operational structure.
• Familiarity with Policy-as-Code tooling is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Architect and operate our cloud platform for resilient compute and storage.
• Implement CI/CD/GitOps for automated infrastructure changes.
• Design automated governance and security controls.

Skills

Platform engineering experience

Proactive attitude

Expertise with cloud providers

Proficiency with Terraform

Kubernetes management

System-level programming (Python, Go, Java)

Job description

Overview

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) Oxford’s purpose is to have a global impact by fundamentally reimagining the way science and technology translate into end-to-end solutions and delivering these solutions in programmes and platforms that respond to humanity’s most challenging problems.

EIT Oxford will ensure scientific discoveries and pioneering science are turned into products for the benefit of society that can have high-impact worldwide and, over time, be commercialised to ensure long-term sustainability.

Led by a world-class faculty of scientists, technologists, policy makers, economists and entrepreneurs, the Ellison Institute of Technology aims to develop and deploy commercially sustainable solutions to solve some of humanity’s most enduring challenges. Our work is guided by four Humane Endeavours: Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology, Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Change & Managing Atmospheric CO2 and Artificial Intelligence & Robotics.

Set for completion in 2027, the EIT Campus in Littlemore will include more than 300,000 sq ft of research laboratories, educational and gathering spaces. Fuelled by growing ambition and the strength of Oxford’s science ecosystem, EIT is now expanding its footprint to a 2 million sq ft Campus across the western part of The Oxford Science Park. Designed by Foster + Partners led by Lord Norman Foster, this will become a transformative workplace for up to 7,000 people, with autonomous laboratories, purpose-built laboratories including a plant sciences building and dynamic spaces to spark interdisciplinary collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Our MLOps team
• Join ourMLOpsteam to build the cloud and compute foundation that enables scientific breakthroughs. Deliver reliable, secure platforms and self-service guardrails that accelerate experimentation and turn ideas into results—faster, at scale, and with confidence.

• Architect, build, andoperateour cloud platform, moving infrastructure beyond theinitialsetup to deliver resilient compute, network, and storage, including full-sized GPU clusters

• Drive the implementation of highly structured, auditable delivery pipelines (CI/CD/GitOps) using to enforce automated, repeatable infrastructure changes

• Design and deploy automated governance and security controls using Policy-as-Code (specificallyKyvernoand YAML) to ensure strong isolation, protect data, and meet internal audit standards

• Establish the foundational monitoring, alerting, and telemetry frameworkrequiredfor robust operations, defining clear SLOs, and setting the course for future SRE work

• Partner with Research and Data teams to build self-service capabilities that efficiently support diverse workloads, from Python notebooks to distributed clusters

Qualifications

• What makes you a great fit:
• Proven experience platform engineering, with a demonstrabletrack recordof architecting and automating operational processes
• A highly proactive attitude and a passion for introducing and automating operational structure
• Expertisewith at least one major cloud provider (OCI, AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Proficiencywith Terraform for declarative, large-scale infrastructure provisioning
• Comfortable with operating and managing large-scale, resilient Kubernetes clusters
• Proficiencyin at least one major language for system-level tools (e.g. Python, Go, or Java) with some scripting experience

• It would also be great if you had:
• Familiarity with modern Policy-as-Code tooling
• A passion for introducing and automating operational rigour and structure
• Experience supporting ML and Data Engineering workloads

Salary and benefits

• We offer the following salary and benefits:
• Enhanced holiday pay
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme

Why work for EIT

At the Ellison Institute, we believe a collaborative, inclusive team is key to our success. We are building a supportive environment where creative risks are encouraged, and everyone feels heard. We value emotional intelligence, empathy, respect, and resilience, and encourage people to be curious and to have a shared commitment to excellence. Join us and make an impact!