Senior Platform Engineer
Hybrid working - Remote + On-Site in the UK
Full-Time, Permanent (UK working permit required)
Who We Are
We are a Business Transformation Consultancy, passionate about supporting our clients with their transformation challenges and optimising how they work through the effective use of technology. Our goal is to help our clients realise true value from their investment. Our services include Programme Delivery, Business Change, Platform Engineering (inc. DevOps, DevSecOps & SRE), Agile Consultancy, Coaching & Training.
We are growing quickly but continue to set the bar high. We are looking for Technology and Digital consultants who share our values and approach and bring subject matter expertise, passion and a desire to do the right thing for clients. We offer our people the opportunity to act as a trusted advisor to a range of impressive clients, working on complex and varied digital and technology engagements and making a real difference to the company’s we support
As an Employee-Owned Trust (EOT), our people are at the heart of everything we do. Everyone has a stake in our success, a voice in how we operate, and a shared responsibility to act with integrity, ambition and care.
The Role
The Senior Platform Engineer is a senior role within Lean Tree’s Engineering Practice, combining deep, hands-on platform engineering expertise with responsibility for delivering complex platform change for our clients.
Operating with a high degree of autonomy, the Senior Platform Engineer will primarily deliver complex platform engineering work for Lean Tree’s clients, bringing strong technical expertise and leadership to each engagement. Alongside client delivery, they will support the engineering leadership with selected practice responsibilities and provide trusted cover within this space when required.
Working closely with the Head of Engineering and Platform Lead, the role will contribute to the quality and consistency of engineering delivery, support colleagues and help strengthen technical standards across the practice. The Senior Platform Engineer will also act as a dependable right-hand person when needed, helping to maintain momentum and provide continuity across agreed practice priorities.
This role requires an experienced platform engineer who combines strong technical credibility and delivery leadership with sound commercial judgement and an interest in taking on broader responsibility. The successful candidate will be a trusted partner to the engineering leadership, a respected technical leader and an important contributor to Lean Tree’s client delivery and continued growth.
Professional Consulting Expectations
As a consulting professional, your role extends beyond delivering high-quality client work. You will also contribute to Lean Tree’s growth, reputation and commercial success by building trusted client relationships, identifying opportunities to create additional value, supporting business development and proposals, sharing knowledge and strengthening our consulting capabilities.
Everyone plays a part in generating future revenue by recognising client needs, identifying new opportunities, supporting account growth and contributing to market insights or thought leadership. Success is measured not only by client delivery, but also by your contribution to the firm’s long-term growth, profitability, capability and culture. Consultants at all levels are therefore expected to think commercially and understand that sustainable success depends on both excellent delivery and the development of future opportunities.
Key Activities
Purpose of the Role
Turn the Platform Engineering practice's intent into effective execution. Alongside client delivery and deep technical change, you will provide the operational discipline needed to build a healthy, commercially sustainable and scalable capability.
Immediate Role and Key Activities
Lead the design, build and evolution of secure, scalable and reliable platform infrastructure for client environments.
Remain hands-on with complex platform engineering work, including technical discovery, architecture, implementation, troubleshooting and remediation.
Design and operate container platforms, ideally Kubernetes and AWS EKS, including service-mesh and workload-management considerations.
Build reusable CI/CD capabilities and help development teams adopt effective deployment practices.
Build and implement Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and associated automation tooling.
Implement security, resilience, observability, backup and service-management practices that meet client and industry requirements.
Advise client teams as they onboard products to shared platform services and adopt Platform Engineering ways of working.
Set and monitor meaningful KPIs and service levels for the platforms and services we create.
Promote automation and platform adoption to improve quality, reduce developer friction and enable faster product delivery.
Provide technical leadership to engineers while creating space for others to develop and take ownership.
Management of the day-to-day operational needs of the platform team.
Operational and Practice Responsibilities
Support implementation of strategic priorities and company intent into clear team priorities, ownership and follow-through.
Establish and maintain an effective delivery cadence, including regular team meetings and other practice operating rhythms where required.
Follow through on client commitments, actions and emerging needs and surfacing risks early.
Support hiring, selection and onboarding so that capability growth keeps pace with client and business demand.
Support the sales pipeline through technical qualification, solution shaping and timely client follow-up.
Shape proposals and statements of work, coordinate inputs and ensure opportunities continue to move forward.
Collate and maintain reusable bid material, case studies, delivery evidence and Platform Engineering collateral.
Maintain internal discipline across planning, reporting, knowledge sharing, standards and agreed ways of working.
Make sound day-to-day operational decisions.
Coach engineers, create clarity on expectations and help build a confident, accountable team.
Behaviours & Capabilities
Technical Expertise
A proven track record in DevOps, DevSecOps or Platform Engineering, normally gained over at least five years, with the credibility to lead complex technical change.
Strong hands-on experience across cloud, Kubernetes, security and modern platform engineering practices.
Experience working in agile delivery environments using approaches such as Scrum and Kanban.
Relevant cloud, Kubernetes, security or platform certifications are advantageous.
Client Delivery & ConsultingExperience in consultancy, technical delivery leadership, engineering management or technical project and programme delivery.
The ability to move comfortably between detailed engineering work, client conversations and delivery leadership.
Strong delivery judgement, with the ability to identify and communicate technical risks, dependencies and practical solutions.
Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical choices, delivery risks and commercial implications to both technical and non-technical audiences.
A strong commitment to delivering high-quality outcomes and building trusted relationships with clients.
Leadership & Practice Support
The confidence to provide technical direction, coach engineers, address issues and create accountability without relying on hierarchy.
The capability to act as a trusted right hand person to the engineering leadership and step into the leadership space when required.
An interest in supporting the continued development of Lean Tree’s Engineering Practice alongside client delivery.
Strong judgement and the ability to make pragmatic decisions when balancing client, team and practice priorities.
Experience of EOS or Level 10 operating rhythms is useful but not essential.
Commercial Awareness & Ways of Working
Commercial awareness, including an understanding of consulting economics, utilisation, margin, pipeline development and the importance of timely client follow-through.
Experience contributing to business development activities, such as shaping opportunities, supporting proposals or participating in client conversations.
A collaborative, pragmatic and self-starting approach, with the ability to work autonomously and take ownership of outcomes.
The discipline to balance client commitments with agreed technical leadership and practice responsibilities.
The adaptability to work effectively across different clients, technologies, teams and delivery environments.
Experience
Essential
Extensive hands-on experience designing, building and operating production AWS platforms, including multi-account environments, identity and access management, networking, compute, storage, resilience, cost optimisation and operational governance.
Strong experience designing and operating Kubernetes platforms, ideally AWS EKS. This should include networking, ingress, service mesh, workload management, upgrades, security, reliability and developer support.
Advanced Infrastructure as Code experience, preferably using Terraform with workflow tools such as Atlantis or Digger, to deliver repeatable, governed and testable platform changes.
A security-first approach, with experience embedding security controls into cloud platforms, infrastructure code, CI/CD pipelines and operational processes.
Strong experience with Git-based development workflows and modern CI/CD tooling, including the design of reusable, secure deployment pipelines.
Experience building self-service platform capabilities and IDPs that reduce developer friction, improve deployment confidence and enable secure, reliable delivery.
Strong experience deploying, operating and troubleshooting applications and shared platform services in AWS.
Good knowledge of observability and Site Reliability Engineering practices, including metrics, logging, tracing, alerting, incident management, service-level objectives and continuous reliability improvement.
Strong Linux and UNIX administration and troubleshooting skills.
A detailed understanding of secure networking across cloud and hybrid environments, including network segmentation, routing, connectivity, access controls and relevant security practices.
The ability to provide technical leadership, make informed architectural decisions and guide engineers through complex platform changes.
Desirable
Experience defining platform engineering strategy, technical roadmaps, standards and governance across multiple teams or client environments.
Experience designing platforms that support microservice, event-driven and distributed architectures at enterprise scale.
Broader cloud security engineering experience, including threat modelling, policy as code, security monitoring and integration with SIEM or SOAR capabilities.
Strong software engineering and automation skills using languages and tools such as Python, Go, Shell, Helm or Ansible.
Experience implementing enterprise observability platforms such as Datadog, Splunk or Sumo Logic across complex environments.
Experience building or operating Internal Developer Platforms, service catalogues and developer portals using products such as Backstage or Port.
Benefits
To find out about our competitive benefits package, head to our benefits page.
