Senior IT System Engineer Location: London

We power people’s progress. At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact.

We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale.

Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

A Senior IT Systems Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for the architecture, reliability, and security of the company's core IT infrastructure and services. This role goes beyond complex operational support to drive strategic technical initiatives, define best practices, and mentor P5 and P6 engineers. The P7 Engineer owns the technical roadmap for key systems and is accountable for the successful execution of cross-functional projects that enhance the global employee experience and corporate security posture.

What you’ll be doing

• Cloud Infrastructure & SaaS Governance
  • Own and evolve our cloud infrastructure on GCP — from identity architecture and access controls to cost optimisation and scalability planning.
  • Lead SaaS lifecycle management across 300+ applications: discovery, governance, license optimisation, and vendor accountability using tools like Torii.
  • Design and maintain our IAM ecosystem (Okta, Google Workspace, Jamf) including SSO/MFA enforcement, provisioning workflows, and identity lifecycle automation.
  • Build and enforce endpoint management policies across a 99% Apple fleet via Jamf and MDM, ensuring security baselines and a great employee experience.
  • Create dashboards and reporting frameworks that give leadership real visibility into our SaaS spend, cloud posture, and asset health.
• Code, Automation & AI Platforms
  • Write production-quality code daily — Python scripts, API integrations, iPaaS workflows (Workato or similar), and lightweight internal tools that solve real problems for our team.
  • Build and maintain integration pipelines that connect our SaaS ecosystem: identity provisioning, automated onboarding/offboarding, license reconciliation, and event-driven workflows.
  • Develop internal tooling and dashboards (Google Apps Script, Python, HTML/CSS/JS) that surface actionable data — from AI usage analytics to hardware fleet health and budget forecasting.
  • Shape and execute our internal AI tools strategy — managing adoption, governance, and usage analytics for platforms like Claude, ChatGPT Enterprise, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor.
  • Treat Infrastructure as Code as a default: version-controlled configurations, reproducible environments, and CI/CD pipelines for IT automation deployments.
  • Design automation solutions that are clean, maintainable, and built to last — not just clever scripts, but well-documented, testable, production-grade systems.
• Team Leadership & Technical Mentoring
  • Lead and mentor a team of 5–6 IT engineers — hiring, coaching, mentoring, and creating real career development paths.
  • Elevate your team’s engineering skills through hands-on mentoring: pair programming, code reviews, architecture discussions, and setting quality standards that raise everyone’s game.
  • Build a collaborative engineering culture where the team ships robust IT solutions that internal customers genuinely value.
  • Help IT engineers grow from script-writers into systems thinkers — teaching them to build modular, testable, well-documented automation they’re proud of.
  • Champion open communication and a strong feedback culture — great teams are built on psychological safety, trust, and transparency.
  • Collaborate across the Platform group to align your team with company objectives and ambitious IT maturity goals.
  • Build roadmaps that balance long-term strategic vision with tactical quick wins that deliver immediate value.
• Security & Compliance
  • Partner with Security and Legal to maintain SOC 2 compliance — owning IT controls, evidence collection, and audit readiness.
  • Ensure GDPR and data protection requirements are embedded into every system and workflow your team touches.
  • Lead initiatives that enforce best-in-class governance practices: access reviews, vendor risk assessments, and shadow IT remediation.
  • Embrace an agile “build it and run it” mindset where your team owns what they build, from launch through ongoing security and support.
• Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
  • Create a learning environment where experimentation is encouraged and delivery proficiency keeps improving.
  • Lead initiatives that crush manual work, boost efficiency, and raise the bar on governance practices.
  • Be the champion for engineering best practices within the IT function and across the organisation.

What you need to succeed

• 8k+ years in IT engineering, platform engineering, or infrastructure roles — with at least 2 years leading or mentoring a technical team.
• Strong, demonstrable coding ability in Python — not just scripting, but building well-structured, testable automation with proper error handling, logging, and documentation.
• Hands-on experience building API integrations and working with RESTful services, OAuth flows, webhooks, and API-first SaaS platforms.
• Proficiency with at least one iPaaS / workflow automation platform (Workato, Tray.io, n8n, or similar) for building enterprise integration pipelines.
• Experience building internal tools and dashboards — whether that’s Google Apps Script, lightweight web apps (HTML/CSS/JS), or data visualisation frameworks.
• Deep hands-on experience with our core stack: Okta (or comparable IdP), Google Workspace, Jamf, and GCP.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code principles and tools (Terraform, Pulumi, or similar).
• Version control fluency — Git workflows, branching strategies, and CI/CD pipelines are second nature to you.
• A genuine passion for AI-assisted workflows and experience adopting or governing AI developer tools (Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or similar).
• The ability to balance team management with hands-on technical work — you lead by example and stay close to the code.
• Experience mentoring engineers: you enjoy pair programming, giving thoughtful code reviews, and helping people level up their craft.
• Experience navigating compliance frameworks (SOC 2, GDPR, ISO 27001) from the IT operations side.
• A problem-solving mindset that navigates ambiguity with data, curiosity, and a user-first approach.
• A bias for action: experiment, test new approaches, learn from data, and iterate quickly to deliver value.
• Clear, effective communication in English (written and verbal).
• Openness to giving and receiving feedback in a safe, supportive environment.

Why you’ll love it at Preply

• An open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture.
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com, Learning & Development budget and time off for your self-development.
• A competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance and health insurance.
• Not in Barcelona? We offer an attractive relocation package to join us in our Preply Barcelona Hub.
• Access to free mental health support platforms.
• Access to Gympass-partnered wellness and gym centers throughout Spain to promote and support well-being and physical health.
• The opportunity to shape the lives of learners and tutors through language learning and teaching in 175 countries (and counting!).

Our Principles

• Care to change the world - We are passionate about our work and care deeply about its impact to be life changing.
• We do it for learners - For both Preply and tutors, learners are why we do what we do. Every day we focus on empowering tutors to deliver an exceptional learning experience.
• Keep perfecting - To create an outstanding customer experience, we focus on simplicity, smoothness, and enjoyment, continually perfecting it as every detail matters.
• Now is the time - In a fast-paced world, it matters how quickly we act. Now is the time to make great things happen.
• Disciplined execution - What makes us disciplined is the excellence in our execution. We set clear goals, focus on what matters, and utilize our resources efficiently.
• Dive deep - We leverage business acumen and curiosity to investigate disparities between numbers and stories, unlocking meaningful insights to guide our decisions.
• Growth mindset - We proactively seek growth opportunities and believe today's best performance becomes tomorrow's starting point. We humbly embrace feedback and learn from setbacks.
• Raise the bar - We raise our performance standards continuously, alongside each new hire and promotion. We build diverse and high-performing teams that can make a real difference.
• Challenge, disagree and commit - We value open and candid communication, even when we don’t fully agree. We speak our minds, challenge when necessary, and fully commit to decisions once made.
• One Preply - We prioritize collaboration, inclusion, and the success of our team over personal ambitions. Together, we support and celebrate each other's progress.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.