SC Cleared Platform Engineer

Perfect role for a mid professional looking to grow their Defence & Government career in Glasgow.

SC clearance is one of the harder things to build a career around, and one of the most valuable. This Defence & Government contractor is a startup, small enough that decisions happen fast and big enough to be trusted with genuinely sensitive infrastructure work. As an SC Cleared Platform Engineer, you’d be joining a team that builds and runs the systems government clients depend on, with none of the layers of bureaucracy you’d find at a larger prime contractor.

Here’s what you’ll be doing:

Design, build and maintain cloud and on-premise platform infrastructure for secure government workloads

Automate deployment pipelines and infrastructure provisioning using tools like Terraform, Ansible or similar

Monitor system health and respond to incidents across production and pre-production environments

Work closely with development teams to improve reliability, security and deployment speed

Contribute to security hardening and compliance work in line with government and MOD standards

Document platform architecture and operational runbooks as the systems evolve, Defence and government work doesn’t slow down when budgets tighten elsewhere. Glasgow has become a real hub for this kind of engineering, with a growing cluster of secure-cleared talent and the contracts to match. An SC Cleared Platform Engineer with a few years under their belt has options most engineers don’t, and the clearance itself becomes a career asset that compounds over time.

Active SC clearance (essential, non-negotiable for this role)

Solid experience with Linux systems administration and container orchestration (Kubernetes or Docker)

Working knowledge of infrastructure as code and CI/CD pipelines

Comfortable working across AWS, Azure or on-premise government cloud environments

Clear communicator who can explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders

Able to work independently and take ownership, this is a flat structure with few layers of sign-off

£43,500 to £56,500 depending on experience

Hybrid working based from Glasgow, with flexibility built in

Equity or stock options, so you share in what you help build

Flexible working hours and a genuinely remote-friendly culture

Dedicated learning and development budget to keep your skills current

Why pursue a career in Defence & Government?