Head of Platform Engineering

About the company

Our client is an early-stage machine-learning business developing technology to solve complex customer problems. Its work brings platform, product and client teams together in a fast-moving engineering environment, with a focus on building reliable technology for demanding use cases.

The business is growing its engineering capability and investing in the people, leadership and practices needed to support that growth. Its purpose is to apply machine learning to challenging customer needs. The culture values engineering excellence, clear communication, energy, ownership and a willingness to tackle difficult problems. It also prizes practical, flexible thinking and high standards, while encouraging people to learn, collaborate and use emerging technologies thoughtfully.

What the job entails

As Head of Platform Engineering, you will take responsibility for the platform function, including its architecture, infrastructure decisions, reliability and scalability. You will join a team of four engineers, with further platform hires planned, and shape how the function develops as the business grows.

This is a hands-on player-coach role: you will contribute technically while building the team, attracting and developing engineers, and establishing effective leadership structures, standards and working practices. You will work closely with product and client teams, making complex technical decisions clear to both technical and non-technical colleagues. The environment is high-velocity and complex, so you will need to make sound decisions, build appropriate guardrails and help teams deliver safely. There is scope for the role to develop into leadership of a global platform engineering function.

Key requirements / What we look for

• A strong record of solving difficult problems, with clear career progression and multiple promotions.
• Hands-on platform engineering experience, including substantial Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code expertise, such as Terraform.
• Practical experience with Docker, Git and cloud platforms; Azure, AWS and/or GCP.
• The ability to explain architecture and systems you have shipped in depth.
• Player-coach leadership, strong communication, and the ability to build and develop engineering teams.
• Experience scaling systems in complex environments; experience building teams or working in regulated settings is advantageous.