Lead Cloud Engineer

Kingfisher plc; Polska; Hybrid; PLN 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical healthcare

Sports card

Life insurance

Lunch break

Home office

Training & Buddy

Wellbeing programme

Transport tickets

Learning opportunities

Job summary

Kingfisher plc in Kraków is seeking an experienced Lead Cloud Engineer to head a team delivering the Internal Engineering Platform that supports ~1500 engineers across the group.

The role combines technical leadership and platform strategy, focusing on reliability, scalability, and a superior developer experience with self-hosted tools like GitLab Ultimate, Nexus, and SonarQube. You will drive IaC adoption and collaborate with security and product teams.

Qualifications

• Experience administering GitLab Ultimate (self-hosted).
• Hands-on Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.
• Proven experience with AWS and/or GCP.
• Experience with Jenkins, Nexus, and SonarQube.
• Strong scripting in Python and Bash.
• Familiar with AI-enabled developer tools.
• Proven people leadership and team management.
• Strong solution design and architecture thinking.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication.
• Excellent English (written and spoken).

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team delivering cloud-based developer tooling.
• Set goals, priorities, and performance expectations while fostering a collaborative, ownership-driven culture.
• Support onboarding and career development.
• Own the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of the Internal Engineering Platform.
• Ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of GitLab Ultimate, Nexus Repository, SonarQube, and CI/CD tooling.
• Define platform standards, golden paths, and reusable components.
• Design scalable cloud solutions across AWS and GCP.
• Drive Infrastructure as Code adoption using Terraform and support key technical decisions.
• Ensure alignment with security, compliance, and platform engineering best practices.
• Improve developer productivity through automation and self-service capabilities.
• Simplify onboarding and enhance CI/CD workflows.
• Partner with engineering teams to continuously improve the platform and developer experience.
• Collaborate with engineering, security, and product stakeholders to align priorities and delivery.
• Communicate platform direction, progress, and priorities clearly.
• Balance competing demands across teams and domains.
• Drive adoption of AI-enabled capabilities and modern platform engineering practices.
• Continuously optimise platform performance, cost, and user experience.

Skills

GitLab Ultimate

Terraform IaC

AWS/GCP

Developer tooling

Python/Bash

AI-enabled tools

People leadership

System design

Stakeholder management

English proficiency

Tools

Jenkins

Nexus

SonarQube

Job description

We’re Kingfisher, a team made up of over 74,000 passionate people who bring Kingfisher - and all our other brands: Castorama, B&Q, Screwfix, Brico Dépôt and Koçtaş - to life. That’s right, we’re big, but we have ambitions to become even bigger and even better. We want to become the leading home improvement company and grow the largest community of home improvers in the world. And that’s where you come in.

At Kingfisher, our customers come from all walks of life, and so do we. We want to ensure that all colleagues, future colleagues, and applicants to Kingfisher are treated equally regardless of age, gender, marital or civil partnership status, colour, ethnic or national origin, culture, religious belief, philosophical belief, political opinion, disability, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.

We are open to flexible and agile working. Therefore, we offer colleagues a blend of working from home and our office, located in Kraków. Talk to us about how we can best support you!

At Kingfisher, we value the perspectives that any new team members bring, and we want to hear from you. We encourage you to apply for one of our roles, even if you do not feel you meet 100% of the requirements.

In return, we offer an inclusive environment, where what you can achieve is limited only by your imagination! We encourage new ideas, actively support experimentation, and strive to build an environment where everyone can be their best self.

About the role

We are looking for an experienced Lead Cloud Engineer to lead a team responsible for building, operating, and evolving our Internal Engineering Platform (IEP) supporting ~1500 engineers.

The platform powers the full software delivery lifecycle and includes self-hosted tooling such as GitLab Ultimate, Nexus Repository, SonarQube and related developer productivity services.

This role blends technical leadership, people management, and platform strategy, ensuring high availability, scalability, and an outstanding developer experience.

If you're looking for an exciting opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and make a real impact building better software, this is the job for you!

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of engineers delivering cloud-based developer tooling.
• Set goals, priorities, and performance expectations while fostering a collaborative, ownership-driven culture.
• Support onboarding and career development.
• Own the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of the Internal Engineering Platform.
• Ensure the reliability, scalability, and security of GitLab Ultimate, Nexus Repository, SonarQube, and CI/CD tooling.
• Define platform standards, golden paths, and reusable components.
• Design scalable cloud solutions across AWS and GCP.
• Drive Infrastructure as Code adoption using Terraform and support key technical decisions.
• Ensure alignment with security, compliance, and platform engineering best practices.
• Improve developer productivity through automation and self-service capabilities.
• Simplify onboarding and enhance CI/CD workflows.
• Partner with engineering teams to continuously improve the platform and developer experience.
• Collaborate with engineering, security, and product stakeholders to align priorities and delivery.
• Communicate platform direction, progress, and priorities clearly.
• Balance competing demands across teams and domains.
• Drive adoption of AI-enabled capabilities and modern platform engineering practices.
• Continuously optimise platform performance, cost, and user experience.

Skills

• Strong experience administering and configuring GitLab Ultimate (self-hosted).
• Hands-on expertise with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code.
• Proven experience working with AWS and/or GCP.
• Experience with developer tooling ecosystems, including Jenkins, Nexus (or equivalent), and SonarQube (or equivalent).
• Strong scripting skills, particularly in Python and Bash.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled developer tools, such as code assistants and intelligent CI/CD capabilities.
• Proven people leadership and team management experience.
• Strong solution design and architectural thinking.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to operate effectively within complex, large-scale engineering environments.
• Strategic mindset combined with a pragmatic, hands-on approach.
• Track record of improving platform reliability, developer productivity, and adoption of engineering standards.
• Focus on reducing software delivery lead times while maintaining high levels of team engagement and retention.
• Excellent command of English (written and spoken).

Nice to have

• Experience running platforms for large-scale engineering organisations
• Experience in platform engineering
• Knowledge of security and compliance frameworks
• Experience with observability and SRE practices

We offer a competitive benefit package and plenty of opportunities to stretch and grow your career:

• Private medical healthcare at LUXMED (including dentalcare) for you and your family
• Medicover sports card (Fit&More package)
• Life insurance financed by the employer
• 30-minute lunch break included in the 8-hour working day
• Work in a highly professional and stimulating atmosphere
• Training & Buddy programme that will allow you to quickly adapt to your new role
• Wellbeing programme for employees
• Co-financing of monthly tickets for the public transport in Krakow
• Comfortable working environment in the office and the possibility of home office
• Language courses, accounting courses, access to LinkedIn Learning and the possibility of co-financing studies and certification