Cloud Platform Technical Lead

This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role within the Cloud Platform team. You'll act as the technical lead for a team of Platform Engineers, working alongside a people-focused manager who handles HR, performance, and pastoral responsibilities.

Your focus will be on technical direction, engineering standards, platform reliability, and delivery. You'll lead by example, remaining close to the technology while guiding the team through complex Cloud initiatives, platform improvements, and major incidents.

The role combines deep technical ownership with collaboration across architecture, security, and delivery teams, helping drive adoption of a self-serve, GitOps-led operating model across the organisation.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING

• Acting as the technical lead for a team of Cloud Platform Engineers
• Providing technical direction, standards, and architectural guidance
• Designing, delivering, and operating global Cloud platform services
• Leading complex platform changes and Cloud initiatives aligned to business priorities
• Remaining hands-on with Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code, and automation
• Acting as a key escalation point for complex issues and major incidents
• Supporting and mentoring engineers, reviewing designs, code, and IaC
• Driving continuous improvement across reliability, security, and developer experience
• Working closely with senior stakeholders, architects, and delivery teams

• Extensive experience working with public Cloud platforms at scale (GCP preferred but not essential)

• Strong Kubernetes experience, including design, deployment, and troubleshooting

• Infrastructure as Code expertise (Terraform) and Git-based workflows

• CI/CD pipelines and automation (GitLab CI/CD or similar)

• GitOps principles and tooling

• Experience operating production Cloud platforms, including on-call and incident response

• Proven ability to lead technically, influence others, and set engineering standards

• Software engineering experience (Go preferred but not essential), Lead Cloud Engineer, Cloud Platform Lead, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Infrastructure as Code, Git, GitLab, CI/CD, GitOps, Cloudflare, Automation, Go, DevOps, SRE Skills

• Automation

• GCP

• Go

• Git

• DevOps

• SRE

• CI/CD

• Infrastructure as Code

• GitLab

• Kubernetes

• Cloudflare

• Terraform

• GitOps

• Lead Cloud Engineer

• Cloud Platform Lead

• Up to £85,000 basic salary with a solid bonus scheme
• Hybrid working - minimum 1 day per week on-site in Stoke
• Car or travel allowance included
• Technical leadership role within a global Cloud platform team, * £85,000 basic salary plus bonus
• Car or travel allowance
• Senior technical leadership role with real influence over platform direction
• Opportunity to shape standards, tooling, and operating models
• Ongoing learning and exposure to modern Cloud and platform technologies