At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead and optimise our cloud platform, enhancing developer experience and security.
- Company: Join UnderwriteMe, a dynamic Insurtech company transforming the insurance industry.
- Benefits: Enjoy 25 days annual leave, private healthcare, and a supportive work-life balance.
- Other info: Be part of a diverse team that values your unique contributions and supports your growth.
- Why this job: Make a real impact by solving complex infrastructure challenges in a collaborative environment.
- Qualifications: Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, and Terraform; strong problem-solving skills required.
The predicted salary is between 72000 - 88000 £ per year.
We're looking for a Platform Engineer to help us maintain, optimise and grow our cloud platform by driving and delivering initiatives covering low-level cloud architecture, developer experience and tooling, SRE and cloud security. This is a high-impact, hands-on technical role where you'll work within a team of talented platform & cloud engineers to improve scalability, reliability, developer experience and time-to-market for our product teams. You'll combine your experience operating large systems in the cloud with a passion for developer experience and streamlining the road to production.
What You Will Be Doing
- Lead complex platform initiatives from concept through to production, driving alignment, unblocking dependencies, and ensuring timely delivery of solid, reliable platform components that form the foundation of our products.
- Maintain and operate a global, high availability infrastructure platform spread across 5 regions with round-the-clock usage, supporting our customer success and product development teams to deliver value to our customers. You will also participate in out-of-hours on-call rotas.
- Champion engineering best practices, including CI/CD, SRE, networking and cloud security — raising the overall bar for quality and reliability.
- Collaborate and consult with other engineering teams to help guide and influence their cloud architecture and usage of the platform, ensuring their road to production is smooth and pain-free.
- Mentor and develop engineers, growing their design and architectural thinking, technical capabilities, and ability to operate at scale.
- Research, evaluate, and drive adoption of new tools, frameworks, or architectural patterns that improve developer experience, platform resilience, and delivery velocity.
What Type of Person Fits the Role
- You're a high-impact platform engineer who thrives on solving complex infrastructure and tooling problems in the cloud.
- You care deeply about creating scalable, maintainable, and efficient platform solutions that provide a solid and delightful foundation for other teams to build upon.
- You have a deep experience of operating Kubernetes workloads at scale and maintaining a secure, well-governed cloud environment.
- You are a strong advocate for clear, maintainable and well-tested IaC configurations that make changes safe and easy.
- You're collaborative and approachable; as much at home sharing your knowledge and experience with team-mates or advising platform users as you are being knee-deep in a gnarly helm chart squashing bugs.
- You have your finger on the pulse; both in terms of industry best-practices and technologies and also in how our users interact with our platform - identifying pain-points and needs that can be solved to improve the developer experience.
- You appreciate the value of a paved road in providing a reliable platform, but also know when rigidity needs to be avoided for the benefit of the user.
- You strive to automate all the things, reducing manual toil and opportunity for human error.
- You look forward to collaborating with your team and others in-person 2 days a week in our London office.
Technical Requirements
- Experience designing, building & operating distributed AWS cloud infrastructure, including (but not limited to) networking, IAM, observability & monitoring, security & governance, and maintaining Kubernetes clusters.
- Deep knowledge of AWS, Kubernetes and Terraform best practices alongside GitOps deployment setups.
- Proven ability to lead initiatives — from discovery through delivery, solving problems and finding the best solutions that balance efficiency and ease of use.
- Experience modernising legacy systems and simplifying architecture, reducing cognitive load and making systems easier to reason about, maintain, and evolve over time.
About UnderwriteMe
UnderwriteMe is an Insurtech software business and subsidiary of Pacific Life Re (PL Re), a global life and pensions reinsurance firm. We have a vision to help everyone purchase protection insurance by using data and disruptive technology to transform our partners and markets in order to make their underwriting processes as quick and efficient as possible.
Our core products are:
- Decision Platform - a B2B enterprise platform that provides a best-in-market Underwriting Rules Engine used by over 30 insurers to power their underwriting decisions.
- Protection Platform - a B2B2C marketplace used by over 15,000 advisors to power quoting and purchase of protection products in the UK.
Working for UnderwriteMe means being part of a technology company that is committed to bringing a fresh and dynamic approach to insurance. You’d be working with a team of highly technical experts made up of people with backgrounds in software, fintech, and insurance. Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step.
Providing employees with a healthy work-life balance is very important to our culture. We have a wide range of employee benefits and we host regular social activities and wellbeing initiatives. We are also committed to supporting our employee's involvement in their communities, by actively fundraising, hosting charity events, and overseeing volunteering opportunities.
Benefits (Only for Permanent and Fixed Term Employees)
- 25 days of annual leave with option to buy/sell more days
- Adoption and fertility leave
- Generous enhanced parental leave
- Comprehensive private insurance coverage for employee and dependents
- Group Life Insurance coverage of 9x basic annual salary and Group Income Protection up to 75% of basic annual salary
- Optical benefits
- 15% combined employee/employer contributions
- Subsidized gym membership
- Access to Employee Assistance Program
- Cycle to Work and Electric Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme
- Time off for volunteering
- Charitable matching of employee donations
You Can Be Who You Are
We are committed to a culture of diversity and inclusion that embraces the authenticity of all employees, partners and communities. We support all employees to thrive and achieve their fullest potential. As part of our commitment to accessibility for all, UnderwriteMe will, upon the request of the applicant, provide accommodation during the recruitment process to ensure equal access to applicants with disabilities.
UnderwriteMe Values
UnderwriteMe is transforming the life insurance industry through technology by bringing Insurers, Intermediaries and Customers closer together in the marketplace. We recognise the need to change the life insurance application journey from a complicated, inefficient experience to one that makes the buying process easier and faster for customers and advisers alike.
Platform Engineer employer: Pacific Life
Pacific Life Re is an exceptional employer that prioritises employee well-being and professional growth, offering a supportive work culture enriched by diversity and inclusion. As a Talent Intelligence & Recruitment Marketing Analyst, you will benefit from comprehensive healthcare coverage, generous leave policies, and opportunities for continuous learning, all while contributing to innovative recruitment strategies in a dynamic environment. Located in a vibrant area, the company fosters collaboration and creativity, ensuring that every team member can thrive and make a meaningful impact.
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 Pacific Life 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 Pacific Life.
✨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 Pacific Life.
✨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 Pacific Life 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
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 Pacific Life.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Pacific Life 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 Pacific Life
✨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 Pacific Life 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.
