Data Centre Engineer

Checkout.com is where the world checks out. Our global network powers billions of transactions every year, making money move without making a fuss. We spent years perfecting a service most people will never notice. Because when digital payments just work, businesses grow, customers stay, and no one stops to think about why.

Our Data Centre infrastructure is the vital foundation of our secure, high-performance payments platform. It is the tangible environment where data flows between data centres, cloud providers, and our global financial partners. As a Data Centre Engineer at Checkout.com, you’ll manage the critical hardware and physical connectivity that powers our global payments platform, ensuring robust, organised, and scalable processes across our international sites.

We’re looking for a Data Centre Engineer who is proactive, detail-oriented, and passionate about maintaining the physical and logical infrastructure that supports a high-growth fintech environment. You are someone who thrives in a role that balances hands‑on on-site engineering with remote infrastructure management, understanding the mission-critical nature of physical layer integrity.

You will be instrumental in maintaining the resilience of our global footprint, from racks, cabling and network devices to the Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) that protect our most sensitive data—ensuring our installations meet the rigorous standards required for secure and compliant high-volume payment processing.

As a Data Centre Engineer, you will be the steward of our physical infrastructure across the UK and our expanding global regions. You will lead on-site operations and coordinate with Data Centre Smart Hands when working remotely to deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot the hardware that underpins our services.

Beyond the racks, you will act as a key technical liaison with card schemes and connectivity providers, ensuring that external integrations and carrier services are delivered to specification. With a solid grasp of networking fundamentals, you will go beyond simple hardware maintenance to perform essential network configuration changes, driving efficiency and maintaining the high-security standards that define the Checkout.com platform as we scale.

How You’ll Make An Impact

• Manage the Physical Lifecycle: Own the end‑to‑end deployment of hardware—including servers, networking equipment, and HSMs—from initial "rack and stack" to decommissioning.
• Coordinate Data Centre Operations: Seamlessly transition between on‑site engineering and remote management, providing clear instructions and oversight to Data Centre Smart Hands to ensure remote tasks are executed to our standards.
• Maintain the Source of Truth: Take responsibility for our centre inventory, ensuring every rack, cable, and IP address is meticulously documented.
• Bridge Physical and Logical Networking: Collaborate with our network team to plan network configuration changes on Cisco and Fortinet equipment to support the broader engineering team.
• Liaise with Connectivity Partners: Act as the technical point of contact for external providers and card schemes, ensuring new circuits and cross‑connects are provisioned and tested correctly.
• Monitor and Observe: Utilize Datadog and LogicMonitor to track infrastructure health, proactively identifying hardware trends or physical layer issues before they impact our merchants.
• Drive Compliance and Auditing: Conduct regular physical audits to ensure alignment with our internal security policies and external requirements such as PCI DSS.
• Rapid Incident Response: Act as the first line of defense for physical infrastructure issues, performing hands‑on troubleshooting and hardware replacements to minimize downtime.

What we’re looking for

• Data Centre Expertise: Proven experience in enterprise‑grade data centre environments, with a fundamental understanding of power, cooling, and structured cabling (Copper and Fiber).
• Network Fundamentals: Solid networking knowledge to a CCNA level, including a clear understanding of the OSI model, VLANs, switching, and basic routing. Some insights into AWS, Azure or GCP networking principles are also beneficial, but not required.
• Hands‑on Hardware Experience: Comfortable troubleshooting Cisco enterprise switches/routers and Fortinet security appliances. Familiarity with HSM hardware is a plus, but not required.
• Operational Versatility: Experience working in a hybrid capacity—equally comfortable being the lead engineer on‑site or managing remote technicians through Smart Hands tickets.
• Vendor Management: Experience working directly with third‑party connectivity providers and ISPs; familiarity with the physical requirements of card scheme integrations is highly desirable.
• Tooling Proficiency: Experience using DCIM tools (ideally NetBox) and observability platforms (such as Datadog or LogicMonitor).
• Compliance Awareness: A fundamental understanding of data centre compliance and auditing requirements (e.g., PCI DSS).

Highly Desirable

• Fintech Experience: Prior experience in a high‑growth financial or payment processing environment.
• Inventory Automation: Experience leveraging NetBox or similar tools to automate asset tracking, including the use of scripting / infrastructure as code principles.
• Certification: An active CCNA or equivalent industry certification in the Data Centre management space.

Personal Qualities

• Strong problem‑solving and analytical capabilities.
• Effective communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams.
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Willingness to learn new technologies and adapt to changing requirements.

We create the conditions for high performers to thrive – through real ownership, fewer blockers, and work that makes a difference from day one. Here, you’ll move fast, take on meaningful challenges, and be recognized for the impact you deliver. It’s a place where ambition gets met with opportunity – and where your growth is in your hands.

We work as one team, and we back each other to succeed. So whatever your background or identity, if you’re ready to grow and make a difference, you’ll be right at home here.

It’s important we set you up for success and make our process as accessible as possible. So let us know in your application, or tell your recruiter directly, if you need anything to make your experience or working environment more comfortable.

We understand that work is just one part of your life. Our hybrid working model offers flexibility, with three days per week in the office to support collaboration and connection.