Platform Engineer Practitioner

Job Summary:

We are looking for an experienced Software Engineer / Platform Engineer to join the team. The successful candidate will take ownership of the software engineering and API modernisation, ensuring the platforms reliability, scalability, and efficiency through the application of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles. This role requires a proactive approach to continuous improvement and collaboration across teams and geographies. The ideal candidate will be self-motivated, capable of thriving in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, and willing to be on-call and work shifts as required.

Key Responsibilities:

• Software Development: API modernisation and development, primarily utilising Java is the focus. Extensive experience in secure and resilient software engineering practices. Microservices development, orchestration and code documentation.
• Platform Ownership (SRE): Assume responsibility for the platforms health, driving its reliability, availability, and scalability by applying SRE practices.
• Continuous Improvement: Lead efforts to identify and rectify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement, fostering a culture of continuous feedback and development.
• Collaboration: Promote a collaborative culture within the team and across geographies, ensuring effective communication and teamwork with product owners and engineering teams.
• On-Call Availability: Be prepared to provide on-call support to maintain the platform’s availability and quickly resolve any incidents.
• Agile Participation: Actively participate in all scrum ceremonies, contributing to agile processes and ensuring that platform services align with business requirements.
• High-Quality Solutions: Deliver high-quality solutions that meet functional, operational, and scalability needs, adhering to best practices and industry standards.
• Adaptability in a Dynamic Environment: Successfully navigate and manage multiple tasks in a large, complex, and fast-paced environment, prioritising work effectively to meet business objectives.
• Self-Management: Independently manage and prioritise your workload, ensuring timely delivery of tasks and projects.

Category

Essential for this role

Good to have

Education and Qualifications

Tertiary education in Computer Science, IT, software or computer engineering fields or equivalent.

Work Experience

Minimum 10 years of relevant IT experience in design and software development.

Technical / Professional Skills

• Microservices & API development: Experience migration of containerised microservice builds from Bamboo and Stash to Gitlab and Gitlab runners. Porting of the base container image that supports our microservice builds to GitLab Runners for broader adoption. PI modernisation and refactor effort across our API estate pivoting the ecosystem to be more industry and product aligned
• SRE Skillsets & Routines:
• Experience with dashboarding, operational monitoring, and managing support queues.
• AWS ECS/EKS/Kubernetes Experience: Demonstrated expertise in independently building and managing ECS/* clusters on AWS, with a deep understanding of Kubernetes for container orchestration.
• Software/Platform Engineering: Proven experience in platform engineering, with a focus on integration, scalability, and performance.
• GitOps Experience: Strong understanding of GitOps practices, enabling efficient and automated deployment processes.

• Programming Languages: Proficiency in Java, Spingboot (must), microservices development, Python or Go.
• API Development: definition, development and testing of API’s
• Infrastructure as Code: Experience with Kubernetes and Terraform for managing infrastructure as code.
• Cloud Ecosystem Experience: Experience working within large and evolving environments, including AWS, and on-premises infrastructure.
• Confluent Kafka: Experience with Confluent Kafka is a bonus.

Non-Technical / Soft Skills

• Interfacing with Product Owners and Engineering Teams: Strong ability to collaborate with product owners and engineering teams to ensure platform services meet business needs.
• Quality Communication: Excellent communication skills, crucial for effective collaboration and knowledge sharing within the team.

Other Task-Specific Knowledge/Culture Fit

• Ownership: A proactive and responsible approach to platform management and improvement.
• Collaboration: A team-oriented attitude, thriving in a collaborative environment that spans multiple geographies.
• Agility: Comfortable working within an agile framework, actively engaging in scrum activities and contributing to the team’s success.
• Self-Motivation: Strong self-motivation, independence, and ability to manage and prioritise tasks in a complex environment.