At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the evolution of our cloud platform and unify engineering teams for optimal performance.
- Company: Join Totara, a global learning platform trusted by millions.
- Benefits: Enjoy flexible working, enhanced parental leave, and professional development opportunities.
- Other info: Diverse perspectives are welcomed; we value skills and unique experiences.
- Why this job: Shape the future of a SaaS platform while making a real impact on global learning.
- Qualifications: Deep technical expertise in AWS and experience leading engineering teams.
The predicted salary is between 76500 - 93500 £ per year.
Totara is a global learning platform trusted by more than 1,500 organisations and 21 million users worldwide.
We help organisations build workforce readiness through flexible learning, compliance, and talent development solutions designed for complex and highly regulated environments across both the public and private sectors.
We're at an exciting point in our journey.
As we continue to evolve our platform and expand our Saa S offering, we're investing in the engineering foundations that will support the next phase of our growth.
About the role
This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of Totara's cloud platform.
Historically, our software has been released annually and deployed in a variety of ways by both Totara and our partners.
Today, we're evolving towards operating our platform as a modern Saa S service: continuously delivered, consistently operated, and available wherever our customers need us around the world.
We're clear on where we're heading, but how we get there is still being built. As Head of Cloud Platform Engineering, you'll play a central role in defining that journey.
Today our infrastructure capability spans multiple teams, regions, and platforms, including environments inherited through acquisition.
These teams have built valuable expertise, and your role will be to bring them together behind a shared operating model, common engineering standards, and a platform that enables our product teams to move faster with confidence.
You'll lead the teams responsible for how we provision, deploy, operate, observe, secure, and optimise the infrastructure that supports our global customer base.
Unlike many Saa S businesses, our customers run on dedicated deployments rather than shared multi-tenant infrastructure.
Operating thousands of isolated environments efficiently, securely, and economically is one of the most interesting challenges this role will tackle.
Today we're primarily AWS-based, with multi-cloud capability becoming an important next step.
Our customers include governments and highly regulated organisations with specific regional, sovereignty, and compliance requirements, so expanding our cloud footprint is driven by genuine customer need rather than technology for technology's sake.
What you'll be responsible for
- Bringing teams together
- Build a unified operating model across our infrastructure and cloud engineering teams.
- Establish shared engineering standards, on-call practices, and ways of working.
- Champion engineering excellence across infrastructure as code, peer review, operational readiness, and change management.
- Build, coach, and develop a high-performing distributed team.
- Building a scalable platform
- Own the platform capabilities that enable engineering teams to provision, deploy, and operate services without reinventing infrastructure.
- Define and improve our service reliability through clear SLOs, recovery objectives, and operational practices.
- Make observability a core part of every platform capability, with logging, metrics, tracing, and operational runbooks built in from the start.
- Continuously reduce operational toil through automation, self-service, and self-healing systems so that growth doesn't require proportional operational effort.
- Modernising our infrastructure
- Lead the infrastructure migration towards our target operating model through incremental, low-risk delivery.
- Develop repeatable, automated lifecycle management for our dedicated customer deployments, with clear isolation and resilience built in.
- Cloud architecture and cost
- Own the architecture, security, resilience, and operational effectiveness of our AWS estate.
- Embed Fin Ops into everyday engineering decisions, helping us understand and improve the economics of operating our Saa S platform at scale.
- Security and compliance
- Work closely with security and engineering leaders to ensure our platform is secure, compliant, and resilient by default.
- Support the evidence, auditability, and regional data residency requirements expected by enterprise, government, and regulated customers.
- Multi-cloud strategy
- Lead our expansion into additional cloud providers where customer requirements make this necessary.
- Build portability where it adds genuine value, while keeping the platform pragmatic and avoiding unnecessary complexity.
What success looks like
- Within your first six months
- Infrastructure teams are working within a shared operating model, with common standards and on-call practices.
- A clear, costed, phased migration plan is agreed and early delivery is underway.
- Executive reporting includes meaningful visibility of service reliability and cloud unit economics.
- Within your first year
- Automated provisioning and lifecycle management for our target platform is operating successfully in production.
- Operational effort grows significantly more slowly than our customer base.
- The platform engineering organisation is working as one team with a strong engineering culture and consistently high standards.
W hat we're looking for
We're looking for someone who combines deep technical expertise with thoughtful leadership and a passion for building great engineering organisations.
You'll likely bring experience including
- Leading platform or infrastructure engineering within a growing B2B Saa S business.
- Deep hands-on AWS expertise across infrastructure as code (such as Terraform), containers, orchestration, networking, and cloud security.
- Experience designing and operating dedicated customer or cell-based deployment models, with a strong understanding of isolation, resilience, and operational economics.
- A strong Site Reliability Engineering mindset, including service levels, incident management, observability, and operational excellence.
- Practical Fin Ops experience, with a track record of improving cloud cost efficiency.
- Leading and growing distributed engineering teams across multiple locations, including bringing together teams following organisational change or acquisition.
- Experience working within regulated industries where security, compliance, and governance are fundamental design considerations.
- Real-world experience delivering multi-cloud platforms, with good judgement about when portability genuinely adds value.
- It would be great if you also have
- Experience transitioning products from hosted or self-managed deployments to fully managed Saa S.
- Experience building platforms or ecosystems that enable partners or third parties to extend products.
- Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, Fed RAMP, IRAP, or similar.
Why Join Totara?
- Lead a strategic function with strong executive support.
- Shape the future of security, trust and resilience for a global Saa S platform.
- Work with talented colleagues across New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US.
- Flexible and hybrid ways of working.
Perks and Benefits
- Enhanced Parental Leave
- Private Healthcare
- Life Insurance 4x Salary
- Professional Development Opportunities
- Annual Wellbeing Allowance
- New Joiner home working set-up allowance
- Additional Paid Leave: Birthday off, Working days between Christmas and New Years Eve
At Totara, we believe diverse perspectives make us stronger.
We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and experiences.
If you're excited about this opportunity but don't meet every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you.
We hire based on skills, leadership, potential and the unique experiences people bring to our team.
Head of Cloud Platform Engineering in London employer: Totara Learning Solutions
Totara is an exceptional employer that prioritises innovation and security within a supportive and flexible work environment. As a Chief Information Security Officer, you will have the opportunity to lead a strategic function with strong executive backing, collaborate with talented colleagues across multiple regions, and contribute to meaningful projects that enhance customer trust and organisational resilience. With a commitment to professional development and a diverse workplace culture, Totara offers a rewarding career path for those looking to make a significant impact in the global technology landscape.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Head of Cloud Platform Engineering in London
✨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 Totara Learning Solutions 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 Totara Learning Solutions.
✨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 Totara Learning Solutions.
✨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 Totara Learning Solutions 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 Head of Cloud Platform Engineering in London
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 Totara Learning Solutions.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Totara Learning Solutions 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 Totara Learning Solutions
✨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 Totara Learning Solutions 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.
