Platform Software Engineer – Technical Services Location: Warton/Preston, Lancashire (3–4 days per week onsite) ? Duration: 12-month contract Rate: £74.26 per hour (Umbrella, inside IR35) – approx. £550 per day Clearance: Government SC clearance required (active clearance strongly preferred) Role Overview We are seeking a skilled Platform Software Engineer to join the Technical Services team, responsible for designing, building, and maintaining a secure and scalable hosting environment for engineering and software development workloads. You'll work within a highly regulated environment, delivering robust, high-performing infrastructure solutions across physical and virtualised platforms while ensuring alignment with security and governance frameworks. Key Responsibilities Design, build and manage systems and components across physical, virtualised, and cloud environments. Implement, maintain, and enhance hosting platforms for engineering and software workloads. Monitor and optimise performance, ensuring reliability, scalability, and security. Carry out infrastructure/network/storage builds and rebuilds. Support governance, change control, and regulatory compliance processes. Prepare detailed delivery plans and maintain technical documentation. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate new solutions and deliver continuous improvement. Ensure all implementations adhere to “Secure by Design” and industry best practices. Core Duties As a member of the Technical Services Product Team, you will work closely with network, security, and platform engineers to deliver secure digital solutions for engineering and software development environments. You will: Support the Product Owner in evaluating requirements, dependencies, and delivery progress. Track product development, mitigate risks, and manage service performance. Provide operational support and manage ongoing service improvements. Within Your First 6 Months You Will: Collaborate with the architecture team on low-level design of new environments. Configure, optimise, and troubleshoot distributed engineering solutions. Deliver the foundational engineering collaboration services enabling wider business adoption. Knowledge, Skills & Experience Essential Knowledge: IT infrastructure and IT service management principles. Containerisation (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes). Cloud services and virtualisation. PowerShell / Bash scripting. Software Defined Networking, switching & routing. Cyber security awareness and experience in secure environments. Familiarity with regulated environments and “Secure by Design” principles. Desirable: Experience working within Defence or other highly regulated sectors is advantageous. Technical Skills Solid grasp of networking fundamentals: switching, routing, firewalls, VLANs/VNets, and protocols. Manage and maintain spine-and-leaf architectures, BGP, and SDN. Hands-on experience with Windows Server/Desktop, Red Hat Linux (RHEL), Kubernetes administration, and CI/CD tooling. Experience navigating release-to-service and accreditation processes. Soft Skills Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset. Excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder engagement skills. Collaborative approach with ability to work in cross-functional teams. Proactive, detail-oriented, and adaptable to change. Why Join This is a key role within a forward-thinking Technical Services team, contributing to cutting-edge engineering environments that directly support critical projects. You'll have the opportunity to work with advanced technologies and shape the future of secure digital infrastructure within a highly respected organisation.