Principal Platform Engineer
4 days ago
Newcastle upon Tyne
Principal Platform Engineer (Education) Reporting to: Engineering Director Role Overview The Principal Platform Engineer is the technical and architectural leader for a large-scale, education-focused cloud platform. This role defines and evolves an AI-first, cloud-native Internal Developer Platform (“Golden Path”) that enables global product teams to deliver secure, reliable SaaS solutions at speed. The platform is treated as a product, optimised for developer experience, automation, security, and operational excellence. Key Objectives • Platform as a Product: Design and govern a standardised, self-service Internal Developer Platform that abstracts infrastructure complexity., • Architecture & Delivery: Establish enterprise Infrastructure-as-Code and CI/CD standards across a complex cloud environment., • Security by Design: Embed automated, non-bypassable security and compliance controls into platforms and pipelines., • Cloud: Azure (primary), with AWS and hybrid/on-prem exposure, • IaC: Terraform, Bicep, • Containers: Kubernetes / managed Kubernetes, • CI/CD: Azure DevOps, TeamCity, Octopus Deploy, • Observability: Datadog and native cloud tooling, • Own the architectural roadmap for platform tooling, CI/CD, and observability., • Design self-healing systems and standardised Golden Paths that eliminate manual operations., • Act as the senior authority for platform and cloud architecture decisions., • Lead cloud migrations and infrastructure modernisation initiatives., • Embed security, compliance, resilience, and FinOps practices by default., • Advise Engineering Leads and Managers on platform standards and strategy., • Continuously improve developer experience, delivery velocity, and platform reliability., • 3 months: Unified observability standards, architectural discovery, and risk assessment., • 6 months: Flagship product migrated to target architecture; reusable IaC patterns delivered. Essential: • Senior leadership experience in platform engineering within large-scale SaaS environments., • Deep Kubernetes and cloud-native architecture expertise., • Mastery of Terraform and Bicep., • Proven delivery of complex cloud migrations., • Strong security, compliance, and vulnerability management background., • AI/ML applied to observability or operations., • DORA metrics and developer experience optimisation., • FinOps and cloud cost optimisation., • Designing resilient, highly available data platforms.