Location: Hybrid
Duration: Initial contract until end of the year
Client: Consulting firm supporting a major Financial Services organisation
Overview
We’re looking for an experienced Kubernetes Platform Tech Lead to play a key role in shaping and evolving a highly resilient, scalable, and developer‑friendly Kubernetes platform on Google Cloud.
This is a hands‑on leadership role where you’ll guide a team of engineers, influence platform strategy, and act as the technical authority for a modern cloud‑native platform. You’ll work closely with platform ownership, DevOps teams, and wider stakeholders to deliver a best‑in‑class Kubernetes offering, while helping drive the organisation’s journey toward a multi‑cloud platform strategy.
What You’ll Be Doing
* Lead the design, build, and evolution of a GKE‑based Kubernetes platform, enabling seamless application deployment
* Guide and support engineers through complex technical challenges, providing hands‑on leadership and mentoring
* Act as the technical face of the platform, engaging with stakeholders and supporting customer queries
* Partner with the Platform Owner to support work estimation, prioritisation, and stakeholder management
* Contribute to and influence strategic platform direction, including architecture and tooling decisions
* Play a key role in evolving the platform toward a multi‑cloud capability
* Engineer solutions using automation and Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform, Python, Helm, Flux, Tekton)
* Oversee and optimise a fleet of Kubernetes clusters from a centralised platform
* Ensure adherence to security, risk, and operational standards (networking, logging, monitoring, resilience, etc.)
* Support and enhance CI/CD and continuous testing pipelines
* Drive platform reliability, including upgrades, patching, and non‑functional testing
* Maintain high‑quality documentation and promote best practices across engineering teams
* Participate in a 24/7 on‑call rota
What You’ll Need
* Strong, hands‑on experience with Kubernetes and cloud‑native platform engineering
* Proven experience in a technical leadership or lead engineer role
* Experience building and scaling Kubernetes platforms (ideally GKE, but other cloud experience considered)
* Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation (e.g. Terraform, Python)
* Deep understanding of CI/CD, GitOps, and modern DevOps practices
* Experience with Kubernetes tooling (Helm, Kustomize, kpt)
* Programming experience in Python or Go
* Strong stakeholder engagement skills and ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly
* Experience working in Agile environments
* Ability to evaluate and adopt new tools and technologies
Nice to Have
* Google Cloud certifications (ideally Professional level)
* Kubernetes certifications (CKA / CKAD / CKS)
* Experience with GitOps tools (FluxCD, ArgoCD)
* Experience implementing multi‑cloud platforms
* Strong observability experience (Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud Monitoring)
* Experience working in regulated environments (e.g. Financial Services)
Why Apply?
* Opportunity to lead a critical Kubernetes platform within a large enterprise environment
* Influence technical strategy and platform direction
* Work with modern cloud‑native tooling and practices
* Be part of a collaborative, forward‑thinking engineering culture
* Hybrid working with flexibility across multiple UK locations
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