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.
* Observability: Own global observability standards to enable proactive monitoring, incident response, and service visibility.
Technical Environment
* 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
* Data: SQL Server, MySQL
Responsibilities
* 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.
* Research and introduce emerging technologies, including AI-driven operations.
Success Measures
* 3 months: Unified observability standards, architectural discovery, and risk assessment.
* 6 months: Flagship product migrated to target architecture; reusable IaC patterns delivered.
* 12 months: Fully self-service developer platform with measurable DORA and stability improvements.
Experience & Skills
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.
* Experience applying AI-assisted automation across the SDLC.
Desirable:
* AI/ML applied to observability or operations.
* DORA metrics and developer experience optimisation.
* FinOps and cloud cost optimisation.
* Designing resilient, highly available data platforms.