At a Glance
- Tasks: Build and maintain high-performance infrastructure while ensuring system reliability and scalability.
- Company: Join a leading tech company making a real impact in critical sectors.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, RSUs, hybrid work model, and relocation support.
- Other info: Opportunity to grow in a dynamic, high-autonomy setting with minimal bureaucracy.
- Why this job: Work in a fast-paced environment on mission-critical systems that truly matter.
- Qualifications: Experience with Kubernetes, Python/Go, and production infrastructure is essential.
The predicted salary is between 90000 - 105000 £ per year.
Salary: £90,000 - £105,000 + RSUs
Start: ASAP
Working Model: Hybrid 1-2 days p/w in London (in-office for secure work and on-call)
Location: London, UK
Relocation: Support available for candidates outside London
Eligibility: Must hold active UK SC clearance, OR be eligible to obtain it (British Passport, ILR, or Settled Status) (Non-Negotiable)
Core technologies:
- Kubernetes and containerisation (Docker, orchestration at scale)
- Hands-on production infrastructure experience
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, or similar)
- Proficient in Python, Go, Java, or a comparable backend language
- CI/CD pipeline design and delivery
Environment:
- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-autonomy environment
- Proven track record building and deploying production systems, not just maintaining them
- Able to own reliability, monitoring, and operations end-to-end
- Happy to participate in an on-call rotation
Key skills:
- Production-grade infrastructure design, deployment, and scaling
- Strong Kubernetes and containerisation depth
- Modern automation and IaC tooling
- Solid understanding of distributed systems
- On-call and incident response experience
- Confident debugging and optimising across the stack
- Able to work UK hours and hybrid in London
Role Overview:
We're partnered with a publicly listed technology company building mission-critical software for some of the most important institutions in the world. This is a forward-deployed infrastructure role where you'll operate at startup speed inside a high-security, high-impact environment - owning reliability, deployments, and automation for systems where uptime genuinely matters. This is a hands-on role focused on production infrastructure, system reliability, and scaling operations, working closely with product and delivery teams in a high-ownership setting with minimal bureaucracy.
Key Responsibilities:
- Build, operate, and maintain high-performance, scalable, and reliable production infrastructure
- Own reliability end-to-end including monitoring, alerting, config management, and upgrades
- Deploy new products and run migrations across production environments
- Lead automation efforts to reduce manual toil and improve resilience
- Debug, harden, and optimise services with a focus on long-term reliability
- Participate in an on-call rotation (roughly every 5-6 weeks) for production support
- Partner with delivery and product teams on sensible, scalable systems design
Nice to Have:
- Background in defence tech or another high-complexity technical organisation
- Experience at a major cloud or big-tech company
- Exposure to modern LLM / AI tooling
- Distributed systems design experience
- Prior SRE or on-call rotation ownership
If you've built and run production infrastructure at scale and want to work on systems that actually matter, let's talk.
Forward Deployed Infrastructure Engineer | Kubernetes | Distributed Sy employer: Optimal IT Recruitment Ltd
As a leading technology firm, we pride ourselves on fostering a dynamic and inclusive work culture that empowers our employees to thrive. With fully remote working options available across the UK, we offer competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, and ample opportunities for professional growth, ensuring that our team members can achieve their career aspirations while enjoying a healthy work-life balance.
Contact Details:
Optimal IT Recruitment Ltd Recruitment Team
