Director, Platform Engineering (EMEA) in London

Director, Platform Engineering (EMEA) in London

London Full-Time 113400 - 138600 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
Volta

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead EMEA platform engineering teams and drive innovative AI infrastructure projects.
  • Company: Join Volta, a pioneering AI infrastructure platform with a mission to revolutionise computing.
  • Benefits: Enjoy competitive salary, equity options, comprehensive health benefits, and generous vacation days.
  • Other info: Be part of a diverse and inclusive team committed to your growth and success.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact in the AI era while building a career you're proud of.
  • Qualifications: Proven experience in leading software engineering teams and delivering complex projects.

The predicted salary is between 113400 - 138600 £ per year.

About Volta

Volta is the category-defining, fully vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform – from capital to clusters to software, under a founder-led enterprise.

Our mission is The Utility of Compute™: AI infrastructure as dependable and available as electricity, for every organization that needs it.

Launched with a $10B strategic partnership with one of the leading frontier AI labs, a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, and a $5B AI Infrastructure Fund, Volta is building the infrastructure layer of the AI era from the ground up.

We are 100+ people across London, Palo Alto, and New York, with rapid growth expectations to hundreds.

About Volta

Volta is the category-defining, fully vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform – from capital to clusters to software, under a founder-led enterprise.

Our mission is The Utility of Compute™: AI infrastructure as dependable and available as electricity, for every organization that needs it.

Launched with a $10B strategic partnership with one of the leading frontier AI labs, a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, and a $5B AI Infrastructure Fund, Volta is building the infrastructure layer of the AI era from the ground up.

We are 100+ people across London, Palo Alto, and New York, with rapid growth expectations to hundreds.

About The Role

Volta builds and operates large scale GPU compute infrastructure for frontier AI customers.

The software that turns racks of GPUs into a usable platform is its own product.

You will lead Platform Engineering across EMEA and act as deputy to the VP, Platform Engineering, who is based in Palo Alto.

You own the European teams and their delivery, and you partner with the VP closely enough that the two of you run one organization across two continents.

This is a building role.

Volta already has platform engineers in Europe, today managed from the US, and bringing them into a local structure is your first priority before growing the region into several teams.

It is a software leadership role, but not an abstracted one.

Our platform sits directly on GPU hardware, fabric, and physical sites, and it only works if it stays coherent with them.

  • What You Will Be Doing
  • Lead the EMEA platform engineering teams and own their delivery against the platform roadmap you set with the VP.
  • Bring the platform engineers already in Europe into the EMEA structure in a way that keeps continuity for both the people and the work.
  • Grow the region across multiple capability teams, build the team lead layer beneath you, and own hiring in region without lowering the bar.
  • Act as the VP's deputy: represent Platform Engineering in EMEA, step in when they are unavailable, and keep the two regions aligned so the platform stays coherent.
  • Stay hands‑on enough to lead architecture and design reviews and to call the right answer when a technical debate needs one.
  • Own reliability and operational quality for what the region ships, including on‑call practice, incident response, and closing structural gaps after incidents.
  • Own the boundary between the platform software and the hardware, fabric, and site layers beneath it, working with the infrastructure and project delivery teams whose work it depends on.
  • Work with security engineering across the development lifecycle so security is built into the platform rather than added afterwards.
  • Be credible in front of customers in region when the moment calls for it.

What You Bring

  • Track record building and leading software engineering teams, ideally toward 20-plus people across more than one team.
  • Experience taking over and reorganizing an existing team, including moving people into a new reporting structure and keeping them engaged through it.
  • Engineering leadership where you set direction and own delivery, not pure people management. You are still credible in a design review.
  • Demonstrable understanding of what sits under a cloud service: virtualization, storage, networking, multi‑tenancy, and the bare metal beneath them.

You do not need to have run an Iaa S business, but you need to know how one works.

  • Enough working knowledge of the hardware to reason about where software meets GPU, fabric, and storage reality.
  • Experience taking software from an early stage through to production, not only greenfield prototypes.
  • The maturity to deputize for a senior leader across distance and time zones without needing to be managed.
  • Judgment to work across organizational boundaries with peer engineering leaders, defining clean seams rather than fighting over them.
  • Based in or willing to be on‑site in London, with travel across a US and EU distributed organization.
  • Nice To Have (But Not Essential)
  • Direct experience with an Iaa S or cloud platform, built or operated at scale.
  • Background at a neocloud, hyperscaler, GPU cloud, or HPC environment where the software platform was the product.
  • Familiarity with our current stack: KVM and QEMU, Ceph and SPDK, BGP and VXLAN, Kubernetes operators, PXE and Flatcar provisioning, and Go, Python, and Rust.

This is where the platform is today, not a constraint on where it goes.

  • Experience in a multi‑region engineering organization, or deputizing for a more senior leader.
  • Experience integrating or leveling up an inherited or acquired engineering team.
  • Exposure to building higher‑level services on top of an infrastructure platform.
  • Fluency with AI‑assisted development and a view on scaling agent‑assisted workflows across an organization.
  • Experience leading teams under ISO 27001 or SOC 2 obligations.
  • REQ-78

What We Offer

At Volta, we believe people do their best work when they feel supported, trusted and able to grow.

We're building a company where you can make an impact, keep a healthy balance between work and life, and build a career you're proud of.

As a global team, we do our best to provide great benefits wherever you're based.

While some benefits vary by country due to local regulations, we believe looking after our people is simply the right thing to do.

  • Competitive salary based on the work you do here, not your previous salary
  • Equity in Volta, giving you the opportunity to share in the company's long‑term success
  • Retirement/pension contributions
  • Comprehensive health, wellbeing and insurance benefits
  • Generous number of vacation days each year
  • Additional Information
  • Equal Opportunity

Volta is an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and make employment decisions based on skills, qualifications, experience and business needs.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic.

Accessibility

Volta is committed to providing an accessible recruitment experience for all candidates.

If you require accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the application or interview process, please contact us at

We will work with you to identify reasonable accommodations that enable you to participate fully in the hiring process.

Candidate Privacy Notice

By applying, you consent to the processing of your personal data for recruitment purposes in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the UK GDPR, EU GDPR and relevant US state privacy regulations.

Your data will be shared only with those involved in the hiring process and will not be used for unrelated purposes.

For details, see our Recruitment & Candidate Privacy Notice.

Note to Recruitment Agencies

Volta does not accept unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles from recruitment agencies.

Any unsolicited submissions, including those sent directly to hiring managers or employees, will be treated as the property of Volta.

No agency fees will be payable unless a valid, signed recruitment agreement is in place, and the agency has been specifically engaged for the relevant vacancy.

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Director, Platform Engineering (EMEA) in London employer: Volta

Volta is an excellent employer that values precision and integrity in its operations, making it a great place for detail-oriented professionals. With a supportive work culture that encourages continuous learning and development, employees have ample opportunities to grow their skills in compliance and risk management. Located in a dynamic environment, Volta offers unique advantages such as a collaborative team atmosphere and a commitment to maintaining high standards in client relations.

Volta

Contact Details:

Volta Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Director, Platform Engineering (EMEA) 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 Volta 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

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Tap into Online Developer Communities

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Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles

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We think you need these skills to ace Director, Platform Engineering (EMEA) in London

Leadership in Software Engineering
Team Building and Management
Architecture and Design Reviews
Operational Quality Assurance
Incident Response Management
Cloud Service Understanding
Virtualisation Knowledge

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 Volta.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Volta 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 Volta

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 Volta 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.