Senior Cloud Native Platform Engineer UK

Nscale is the GPU cloud engineered for AI. We provide cost‑effective, high‑performance infrastructure for AI start‑ups and large enterprise customers. Nscale enables AI‑focused companies to achieve superior results by reducing the complexity of AI development. Our GPU cloud bolsters technical capabilities and directly supports strategic business outcomes, including cost management, rapid innovation, and environmental responsibility.

At Nscale, our Engineering team plays a critical role in designing, building, and operating the platforms that power our GPU cloud. We thrive on a culture of relentless innovation, ownership, and accountability, where every team member takes pride in their work and drives it with excellence and urgency. As an Nscaler, you’ll build trust through openness and transparency, where everyone is inspired to do their best work. If you join our team, you’ll be contributing to building the technology that powers the future.

About the Role

The Senior Cloud Native Platform Engineer plays a key role in building and evolving Nscale’s Kubernetes‑native control plane that manages GPU‑backed infrastructure for AI workloads at scale. This is a deeply technical, hands‑on role focused on extending Kubernetes through custom APIs and controllers, rather than configuring off‑the‑shelf components. You will work on production‑grade control plane software that encodes infrastructure, scheduling, and policy into Kubernetes‑native abstractions, and exposes APIs for both internal and external consumers. The role sits between mid‑level and principal engineers, combining strong individual technical delivery with growing architectural ownership and influence.

What You’ll be Doing (Responsibilities)

• Design and implement Kubernetes‑native APIs using Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) that model real infrastructure and platform concepts.
• Build and operate custom controllers that reconcile desired state safely and reliably in production environments.
• Work deeply within the Kubernetes control loop, including: Informers, caches, and leader election; Ownership, finalizers, and garbage collection; Failure handling, retries, and idempotency.
• Write Go as your primary development language, producing maintainable, testable, and production‑ready code.
• Debug complex issues that span multiple layers, including: Linux kernel, cgroups, and device access; Networking, scheduling, and resource isolation.
• Integrate with external infrastructure management systems and APIs.
• Build systems that are observable, supportable, and safe to operate at scale.
• Contribute to design discussions, code reviews, and technical standards within the platform engineering team.
• Act as a technical mentor to mid‑level engineers, supporting skill development and best practices.

About You (Skills / Qualifications)

• Strong, hands‑on experience extending Kubernetes through custom controllers and CRDs in production environments.
• Proven experience writing production‑grade Go for backend or control plane systems.
• Solid Linux fundamentals, including processes, memory management, filesystems, and cgroups.
• Good understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, routing, and overlay networks.
• Experience building, operating, or debugging distributed systems in production.
• Comfortable working across system boundaries and reasoning about failure modes and operational behaviour.
• Able to collaborate effectively across teams and influence technical outcomes through clear communication and quality engineering.

What We Can Offer You

At Nscale, you'll find a collaborative, supportive, and innovative environment where your contributions spark real impact. We're building something extraordinary, and we want you at the core. Highly competitive package (base + equity) with reviews every 12 months. Join the fastest‑growing tech startup, your chance to push boundaries, collaborate with brilliant minds, and make your mark on cutting‑edge AI. Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by trying new things, leading, challenging the status quo, and owning your impact, always with our full support.

Human‑First Flexibility: We treat you as humans first. Our flexible workplace trusts Nscalers to deliver, giving you the autonomy to shape your day around life's moments. Join our thriving remote‑first team. Geography is no barrier to impact or connection. We build seamless virtual collaboration, empowering you, wherever you work.

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio‑economic backgrounds. If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

The responsibilities outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and are intended to provide a general overview of the position. The employee may be required to perform additional duties, tasks, and responsibilities as assigned by management, consistent with the skills and qualifications required for the role.