Platform Engineer

Platform Engineer

Full-Time 63000 - 77000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
Opus2

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Join us to build and optimise our platform, making engineers faster and more efficient.
  • Company: Opus 2, a leading tech company transforming legal work with innovative solutions.
  • Benefits: Enjoy 33 days holiday, health insurance, flexible working, and a contributory pension plan.
  • Other info: Great opportunities for growth, mentoring, and a vibrant team culture.
  • Why this job: Be part of an exciting AI-driven environment where your contributions directly impact the product.
  • Qualifications: Experience in software development, particularly with AWS, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.

The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.

You’ve found your footing. You can deliver infrastructure and tooling work with timely guidance, you’re starting to see how the platform fits together as a system, and you’re getting a feel for which choices hold up under load. That’s the moment we want you in. You’ll join the team that makes it possible for every squad at Opus 2 to build, ship, and operate their own services, and the AI shift in software is something you’ll be living and shaping, not just reading about. You can grow toward Senior and beyond. Internal progression is the default at Opus 2, and we hire externally only when there is no internal alternative.

What you'll be doing

  • Deliver well-scoped platform work end-to-end. Small to mid-size pieces of infrastructure, tooling, or pipeline work with timely guidance. You break it down, ship in slices, and see it land for the engineers who use it.
  • Build tooling that makes engineers faster. Automation over manual steps, paved paths over access requests and tribal knowledge.
  • Work on our CI/CD pipelines. GitHub Actions and ArgoCD, kept fast, reliable, and understandable by the squads that depend on them.
  • Contribute to architecture and design conversations with the development squads. Ask the questions that surface tradeoffs on scalability, reliability, and security early.
  • Help keep the platform observable. Dashboards, alerting, and instrumentation in Grafana Cloud that give a fighting chance.
  • Take part in security and cost reviews. Spot what looks off against best practice, raise it, and pick up your share of the remediation.
  • Pull others up while you grow. Help juniors, review their work well. The mentoring habit starts here, not at senior.
  • Use AI tools well across the SDLC. Daily workflow, exploration, knowledge-sharing. Bring back what you find to the team.
  • Improve the system. Documentation that was missing, a flaky pipeline, observability you wish you’d had. You leave things better than you found them.

The shape we’re hiring for

  • We’re growing engineers toward a T-shape: broad across the platform, with depth starting to form in at least one area. At this level, breadth comes first and depth begins to emerge.
  • Generalist breadth. You’re not blocked by “that’s not my layer” when a problem spans a service, its pipeline, and the infrastructure underneath it.
  • Depth starting to form. A stronger area is developing (Kubernetes, AWS, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability), the one colleagues start coming to you for. By the upper end of this band, that’s noticeable.
  • Ownership of the work you commit to. Outcomes, not just output. You finish what you start, and ambiguity is something you push through rather than something that stalls you.
  • Pragmatism. You favour simple, testable solutions, and you ask for help when complexity gets ahead of you.
  • A user mindset about platform. Your users are engineers. You care whether they can genuinely self-serve, and you write the documentation that lets them.
  • Coaching the level below. You answer questions clearly. You give review feedback that grows people rather than feedback that’s just correct.
  • Change disposition. You treat change in tools and ways of working as part of the job. You learn fast and bring it back to the team.

You’ll be a strong fit if

  • You’ve shipped real infrastructure or tooling into production and can tell the story of how it was used and how it failed.
  • You have a working knowledge of Python, Go, or Java: enough to build tooling rather than only configure it.
  • You’ve worked with AWS and/or Kubernetes, and you want to understand them more deeply than you do now.
  • You’ve been hands-on with CI/CD pipelines, whether building them, fixing them, or making them less painful.
  • You have solid problem-solving instincts, a collaborative mindset, and you communicate clearly, particularly when something is broken.
  • You’re using AI tooling in your daily workflow and curious about where it fits in the platform.
  • You enjoy improving the work around you (tooling, docs, processes), not just adding to it.

Useful rather than essential, and if you can tick off several of these we would like to talk:

  • Terraform, Docker and Helm, Crossplane, Karpenter, Kyverno, Grafana Cloud, Bash and Linux, and familiarity with security best practice.

You might be a less good fit if

  • You want fully-specified tickets and nothing else.
  • You’d rather own infrastructure exclusively and keep developers out of it.
  • You’re not interested in helping more junior engineers grow.
  • You’d rather specialise narrowly and not stretch outside your comfort zone yet.
  • You’d rather hold off on AI tooling until others have proven what works. At this level, adopting and shaping it is part of the day job.
  • You find rapid change in tools and ways of working draining rather than energising.

How we work

Opus 2 builds the platform that leading legal teams use to run their most complex work: a distributed, multi-tenant SaaS platform with API-first surfaces, where security, privacy, and compliance are first-class concerns. The stakes for our customers are real, so we care about quality. We also move fast and ship, because the alternative is irrelevance. Infrastructure Engineering sits inside Product Engineering, based out of our friendly office in central Edinburgh, and works closely with the development squads. The focus is enabling engineers to self-serve through automation and appropriate guardrails. Build it, run it. Squads own their products end-to-end, from the customer outcome through to operating them in production. The platform exists to make that realistic. Pragmatic engineering. We favour simple, testable solutions over premature abstraction. We use data where it informs a real decision. No manual intervention. Automation and guardrails over tribal knowledge and access requests. A learning and improvement culture. We’re building an engineering organisation that learns and adapts at the pace AI is forcing on the work. That’s the bar for hiring, growth, and how we run the team. Coaching as part of seniority. Senior engineers help juniors, mid-levels, and each other grow. We protect that time on calendars.

A work in progress

Opus 2 is in real transition. AI is reshaping how our customers work and how we build software, and we’re investing in the engineering organisation to keep pace. Some of that is already settled, other parts are still being shaped, and the platform is one of the places most visibly in motion. If you want a fully-paved path, this isn’t it yet. You’d be helping to pave it, alongside engineers who have done it before. If you want to be part of a team that’s clear about where it’s going and pragmatic about how to get there, there’s real leverage here.

Tech you’ll work with

We pick tools to fit the problem, and we have a clear sense of where we’re heading. Cloud: AWS Orchestration: Kubernetes primary, serverless where it’s the better fit Delivery: GitHub Actions, ArgoCD Infrastructure and policy: Terraform, Helm, Docker, with Crossplane, Karpenter and Kyverno in the mix Observability: Grafana Cloud Languages on the platform: Python, Go, TypeScript (where we’re investing), Bash; Java and PHP in established services Data: Postgres, MongoDB, OpenSearch / Elasticsearch, vector stores AI: GenAI features already in production (LLMs, retrieval, agentic workflows), with more on the way. You don’t need to know all of these on day one. You should be ready to learn what you don’t.

Working for Opus 2

Platform work at a company where AI is real, in production, and a core part of how customers get value, and where the platform you help build is what makes that shippable. A focused engineering organisation where your work is visible, your decisions matter, and the path from idea to customer is short. Investment in your growth: coaching, learning time, exposure to challenging problems, and a clear path to Senior when you’re ready.

Alongside that:

  • Contributory pension plan.
  • 33 days annual holidays, flexible working, and length of service entitlement.
  • Health Insurance.
  • Loyalty Share Scheme.
  • Enhanced Maternity and Paternity.
  • Employee Assistance Programme.
  • Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice.
  • Cycle to Work Scheme.
  • Calm and Mindfulness sessions.
  • A day of leave to volunteer for charity or dependent day.
  • Regular Company Social Events.
  • Yearly Development Retreat.

Platform Engineer employer: Opus2

At Opus 2, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, offering a vibrant work culture in the heart of Edinburgh where innovation meets collaboration. Our commitment to employee growth is evident through our focus on internal progression, comprehensive coaching, and exposure to cutting-edge technologies, particularly in AI. With generous benefits like flexible working, extensive holiday entitlement, and a supportive environment for personal development, we empower our engineers to thrive and make a meaningful impact in their roles.

Opus2

Contact Details:

Opus2 Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Platform Engineer

Join Local Tech Meetups

Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Opus2 or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!

Contribute to Open Source Projects

Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Opus2.

Tap into Online Developer Communities

Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Opus2.

Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles

Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Opus2 that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!

We think you need these skills to ace Platform Engineer

Infrastructure Engineering
Tooling Development
CI/CD Pipelines
GitHub Actions
ArgoCD
Kubernetes
AWS

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.

Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Opus2.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Opus2 and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!

Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!

How to prepare for a job interview at Opus2

Brush Up on Your Coding Skills

For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.

Know Your Tools and Frameworks

Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Opus2 uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.

Showcase Your Projects

Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.

Prepare for Behavioural Questions

While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.