SENIOR PLATFORM ENGINEER

SENIOR PLATFORM ENGINEER

Department: IT & Business Systems

Employment Type: Permanent

Location: Remote, UK

Description

Please Note:
Closing date to apply for this role is COB Monday 19th October

The Senior Platform Engineer is responsible for acting as a senior hands‑on engineer within the team that operates and maintains Nasstar's shared cloud platform across two sites. The role combines advanced technical delivery, operational leadership and delegated technical authority across physical infrastructure, storage, Proxmox virtualisation, Windows and Linux guest operating systems, Kubernetes, backup, SAN replication and platform disaster recovery. Because the platform hosts network control‑plane components, the role operates within Nasstar’s Telecommunications Security Act (TSA) control framework and is responsible, at the appropriate level, for implementing, operating and evidencing allocated platform controls.

The Senior Platform Engineer helps ensure that the platform remains secure, resilient, supportable and appropriately governed. They lead complex technical work and major‑incident response, contribute to operational priorities and the platform roadmap, and prepare technical recommendations for review by the Team Lead, relevant architect or Technical Design Authority (TDA).

Key Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day technical operations and help develop the five-person cross‑skilled team covering platform, storage, Windows, Linux, Kubernetes, patching, TSA controls and Microsoft SPLA technical evidence.
• Coach engineers, review technical work and give constructive feedback while supporting objectives set by the Team Lead.
• Build sufficient cross‑skilling and documentation to reduce key‑person dependency while retaining named technical authorities for specialist areas.
• Hold delegated technical authority for agreed primary specialisms, act as deputy for other critical disciplines and ensure the two Senior Platform Engineers provide complementary coverage across the service.
• Support work planning, recruitment, skills development and sustainable on‑call coverage, escalating capacity or capability risks to the Team Lead.
• Promote a culture of ownership, learning, constructive challenge, automation and blameless problem investigation.
• Ensure effective delivery of incident, service‑request, change, problem, patching, backup, capacity and lifecycle‑management activities.
• Help coordinate day‑to‑day technical priorities and balance reactive support, planned maintenance, risk reduction and improvement work.
• Maintain actionable monitoring, operational runbooks, support procedures, configuration records and service reporting.
• Lead or coordinate the technical response to major platform and OS incidents, engaging network, security, application and supplier teams as required.
• Participate in the primary OCE rota and senior/specialist technical escalation, act as technical incident lead when appropriate, and review avoidable out‑of‑hours demand.
• Maintain clear service boundaries, including managed OS, application‑owner‑managed OS and Kubernetes workload responsibilities.
• Act as a senior technical authority within delegated areas, provide authority when the Team Lead is unavailable or delegates it, and assure platform changes, maintenance plans, upgrades and operational standards.
• Maintain supported platform patterns, golden images, configuration standards and automation approaches.
• Own or perform, within delegated authority, the controlled assessment, testing, scheduling, deployment, validation and rollback of firmware, Proxmox, storage, management tooling, supported operating systems, standard agents and Kubernetes components; report compliance and manage exceptions.
• Lead complex troubleshooting and root‑cause analysis across the infrastructure and operating‑system stack.
• Ensure capacity, performance, availability and resilience risks are understood, reported and addressed within approved architecture and service levels.
• Coordinate supplier support and technical escalation for Proxmox, HPE, NetApp and other platform products.
• Operate and assure platform and OS hardening, vulnerability remediation, privileged access, segregation, logging and other security controls in accordance with approved standards and the allocated TSA control set.
• Maintain auditable evidence for allocated TSA controls, support assurance and security testing, remediate technical findings and escalate suspected control failures or security compromises promptly.
• Maintain accurate technical inventory, deployment controls, host and VM evidence and usage data for Microsoft software operated under SPLA; implement approved licensing rules and support reconciliation and audit while Commercial or Finance retains agreement, interpretation, formal reporting and payment accountability.
• Ensure backup services, restore procedures and recovery testing are maintained and exceptions are visible and owned.
• Oversee SAN replication monitoring and technical platform failover/failback procedures across the dual‑site environment.
• Ensure platform DR exercises are planned and supported, while maintaining the boundary between platform recovery and application‑owner validation and recovery.
• Work with Security and service owners to contain or elevate workloads that present material security or platform risk.
• Contribute evidence and recommendations to a proportionate platform roadmap focused on security, supportability, resilience, capacity, lifecycle and operational efficiency.
• Design, assure and technically lead allocated TSA controls within delegated areas, validate continuing control effectiveness and lead remediation of technical assurance findings.
• Provide senior technical ownership of the platform‑side Microsoft SPLA inventory, deployment rules, reconciliation data and audit evidence within the agreed Commercial/Finance boundary.
• Prepare technical options, recommendations, impact assessments and implementation plans for material platform decisions.
• Develop and, where appropriate, present material architectural changes, new shared‑platform capabilities and significant standards exceptions to the TDA with the Team Lead or relevant architect.
• Make routine technical, lifecycle and capacity decisions within approved architecture, policy and delegated authority.
• Ensure approved decisions are implemented consistently and that architectural or operational risks are clearly recorded and escalated.
• Maintain effective working relationships with application and service owners, Network, Security/SOC, Security/Risk/Compliance, Service Desk/NOC, Architecture, Change Management, Commercial/Finance and datacentre teams.
• Set clear expectations about platform capabilities, application‑owner responsibilities, maintenance requirements and recovery boundaries.
• Provide accurate service, risk, capacity, patching, vulnerability, backup and lifecycle reporting to relevant stakeholders.
• Support workload onboarding and assess requests against approved service patterns, standards and available capacity.

Within approved policies, architecture and delegated technical authority, the Senior Platform Engineer is expected to:

• Coordinate assigned operational and engineering work and recommend priorities to the Team Lead.
• Technically review and, where delegated, approve routine platform and OS changes within established standards.
• Direct technical incident response and recommend platform failover or failback to the authorised incident or business authority.
• Control and, where necessary, restrict administrative access to the platform and managed operating systems.
• Reject or elevate unsupported, insecure or operationally unsustainable workload requests.
• Require remediation or formal exception for unsupported and non‑compliant configurations.
• Escalate material design changes, standards exceptions and architectural risks through the Team Lead or appropriate governance route.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Demonstrable experience operating as a senior infrastructure, platform, cloud or systems engineer in a production environment.
• Strong technical grounding in virtualisation and shared infrastructure, with the ability to work effectively across compute, storage, Windows, Linux and container platforms.
• Experience operating business‑critical services through incident, change, problem, patch, capacity and lifecycle processes.
• Experience of high‑availability, backup, replication and disaster‑recovery operations in a multi‑site environment.
• Ability to assess technical risk, make proportionate decisions and communicate complex issues clearly to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Experience creating standards, runbooks and repeatable operational practices, with a strong preference for automation and configuration control.
• Understanding of security hardening, vulnerability and patch management, privileged access, operational resilience, auditable control operation and disciplined work in regulated or security‑sensitive environments.
• Experience leading major technical incidents and coordinating work across multiple teams and suppliers.
• Hands‑on experience with Proxmox VE or a comparable enterprise virtualisation platform.
• Experience with HPE Synergy, HPE 3PAR, NetApp storage or comparable enterprise infrastructure.
• Operational experience of both Windows Server and Linux environments.
• Experience operating Kubernetes in a production environment.
• Experience presenting designs or recommendations to a Technical Design Authority or equivalent governance forum.
• Understanding of ITIL‑aligned service management, Telecommunications Security Act controls, regulated hosting and Microsoft SPLA technical inventory or compliance evidence.
• Relevant technical, service‑management or leadership qualifications; equivalent practical experience is equally acceptable.

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