Senior Cloud Engineer (Strong Azure & Kubernetes) in Slough

Quantum is building a high-performance trading platform operating in a security-critical environment. We are seeking a hands-on Senior Cloud Engineer to design, build, secure and operate our Microsoft Azure cloud platform. This is a 100% cloud engineering role focused on platform infrastructure, security and production environments. Corporate IT and end-user support are fully outsourced to a specialist MSP. The Senior Cloud Engineer will own the cloud platform, security posture and trading environment, while overseeing and coordinating with external IT providers where required around identity, tenant governance and transition activity.

Key Responsibilities

• Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Engineering
  • Design, build and operate Azure environments supporting a live trading platform, including:
  • AKS / Container Apps
  • PostgreSQL, Redis, Event Hubs, Kafka, Storage Accounts
  • Define and maintain secure cloud architecture, including networking, segmentation, private endpoints and isolation
  • Build and manage infrastructure using Terraform and Azure CLI, ensuring consistency, traceability and controlled change
  • Own cloud environments across development, UAT and production
  • Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines with robust deployment, rollback and smoke-testing strategies
  • Work closely with backend, data and product teams to ensure scalable, secure and performant platform design
• Security & Risk Management
  • Own the cloud security posture across Azure
  • Design and maintain identity and access models
  • Enforce RBAC and least-privilege principles
  • Manage secrets, certificates and key rotation
  • Ensure encryption at rest and in transit
  • Implement logging, monitoring, alerting and security event visibility
  • Design systems with attack, failure and misuse scenarios in mind
  • Support cloud-level incident response and post-incident reviews
  • Help ensure the platform meets expectations for a trading and regulated environment
• Reliability, DR & Resilience
  • Design, implement and test disaster recovery and business continuity approaches
  • Monitor platform health, performance and availability
  • Identify and remediate single points of failure
  • Maintain clear and tested recovery documentation
• Platform Ownership & Documentation
  • Act as the technical owner of the cloud platform
  • Proactively identify risks, gaps and improvement opportunities
  • Maintain clear documentation covering architecture, infrastructure, security controls and operational procedures
• External IT Provider & Tenant Governance
  • Act as the technical point of contact for external MSPs supporting corporate IT
  • Oversee and validate MSP execution where it intersects with:
  • Identity and access
  • Tenant configuration
  • Security controls
  • Support transition activity between providers where required, ensuring:
  • Quantum retains full tenant ownership
  • Least-privilege access is enforced
  • No compromise to cloud or platform security
  • Ensure MSPs support day-to-day IT operations without owning cloud architecture decisions

Skills & Experience

• Essential
  • Proven hands-on experience as a Cloud Engineer working with Microsoft Azure
  • Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes, ideally AKS, in production environments
  • Strong experience with Terraform / Infrastructure as Code
  • Strong understanding of Azure networking, compute, storage and identity
  • Experience operating production cloud environments with high availability and security requirements
  • Strong security fundamentals including access control, encryption, logging and auditing
  • Comfortable working autonomously in a small, fast-moving team with high ownership
• Desirable
  • Experience in fintech, trading or other security-sensitive environments
  • Experience with containerised and event-driven systems
  • Experience inheriting, hardening or cleaning up existing cloud environments
  • Familiarity with incident response and DR testing in cloud platforms

Working Style

• Proactive and self-directed
• Detail-oriented and disciplined
• Strong communicator who values documentation and clarity
• Comfortable operating with limited direction and high trust

Team Culture & Ways of Working

We are a small, hands-on and collaborative team. We value kindness, low ego, proactive ownership and people who communicate clearly. We look for people who roll up their sleeves, ask for help when needed and help others succeed.