Platform Software Engineer

Location: Remote with occasional visits to Reading or Warton
Contract: 12 months
Rate: £74.26 per hour (Umbrella, Inside IR35)

Security Clearance:

• Active SC clearance strongly preferred

• Must be eligible for SC

• Sole British nationality required

We are seeking an experienced On-Premises Platform Engineer to join a highly secure, on-prem product team operating within a heavily regulated environment. This role sits at the heart of a modern digital platform programme, working alongside network, security, and platform specialists to design, build, operate, and enhance a state-of-the-art on-prem infrastructure.

You will contribute across the full life cycle - from low-level design and build, through to delivery, operation, and continuous improvement - supporting critical collaboration and engineering capabilities.

Product Development & Delivery

• Work closely with the Product Owner and engineering teams to evaluate requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria

• Support cross-functional collaboration across security, legal, commercial, and supply chain teams

• Track delivery progress, manage dependencies, and help mitigate technical and delivery risks

Platform & Network Engineering

• Contribute to the low-level design of a brand-new network

• Configure, optimise, and troubleshoot a highly distributed on-prem network

• Build and maintain physical and virtual infrastructure to enable wider business services

• Ensure high availability, performance, and resilience of network and platform services

Operations & Governance

• Provide ongoing service management and operational support

• Monitor system performance, security posture, and sustainability

• Support change management, governance, and compliance processes

• Maintain detailed design documentation and operational knowledge bases

Occasional travel to Reading HQ may be required for meetings.

Experience & Knowledge

• 3+ years' experience in Platform Engineering, Network Engineering, or similar

• Strong understanding of on-prem IT infrastructure (compute, storage, networking)

• Experience working in secure, regulated environments with security classifications

• Awareness of secure-by-design principles and cyber security approaches

• Familiarity with IT service management and release-to-service processes

Technical Skills

• Strong hands-on experience with:

  • Windows Server/Desktop

  • Red Hat Linux (RHEL)

  • VMware/virtualised environments

  • Citrix VDI

  • Active Directory & Group Policy

• Solid networking fundamentals:

  • Switching, routing, Firewalls, VLANs/VNets

  • Spine-leaf architectures, BGP, SDN

  • Data centre patching and troubleshooting

• Scripting skills advantageous:

  • PowerShell, Bash, Python, Perl, BAT

Soft Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

• Strong collaboration skills across engineering, architecture, and security teams

• Proven problem-solving and prioritisation ability in complex environments

Qualifications

• Relevant professional certifications (eg CCNA, CCNP, CCDP) or equivalent experience

This is an opportunity to work on high-impact, mission-critical infrastructure, contributing to the delivery of a secure, modern on-prem platform within a technically challenging and highly regulated environment. You'll be hands-on, design-focused, and involved from day one in shaping a platform that enables critical business operations.