Principal Platform Engineer

Join Europe's leading, high-growth Google Cloud consultancy. At Qodea, you'll be part of a team energised by innovation and passionate about delivering exceptional results. We craft cutting-edge solutions in data and analytics, AI, cloud infrastructure and security, driving digital transformation that empowers our customers to scale, modernise and lead in their industries. We're driven by ideas and powered by our people.

We are looking for a Principal Platform Engineer to engage with enterprise-level organisations to offer a consultative view and direction on best practices using Google Cloud solutions. 

The main purpose of this role is to lead cloud technology initiatives by applying deep technical expertise and business insight to help shape internal engineering standards.

• Act as a trusted advisor to customers, developing a deep understanding of their technical challenges and leveraging GCP technologies, patterns and practices to address them effectively.
• Provide expert technical guidance and mentorship to platform engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement
• Design highly available, cloud native platforms tailored to customer needs
• Advise customers on modern software development and architecture techniques such as 12 factor applications, microservices and serverless architectures
• Develop internal tooling for the wider Platform Team, that can help us to do more, and be more effective
• Collaborate with customers and our Pre-sales Team to translate requirements into technical designs and guide the process through to solution delivery
• Partner with our Pre-sales Team to support the development of Go-To-Market strategies that align with customer needs and business goals
• Keep abreast of technology developments, ensuring the Qodea business remains ahead of the technology curve.
• Represent Qodea in external engagements with Google and the wider tech community. We can align this to your strengths, for example technical writing or presenting at events. 
• Get involved in our drive towards social progress where possible. Whether that's getting involved in one of our community projects at Qodea or simply buying local when travelling with the company.

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Extensive hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (GCP, AWS, Azure)
• Strong experience with Docker and Kubernetes in production environments, with a deep understanding of container orchestration and management.
• Proficient in infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, and comfortable with configuration management tooling such as Puppet, Chef, Ansible, or Salt.
• Expert-level understanding of Linux operating systems (e.g., Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS) with experience in some systems administration and troubleshooting
• Experience with continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) tools, such as Jenkins, ArgoCD, or similar pipelines, with a focus on automation and reliability
• Solid knowledge of modern internet protocols and patterns, including but not limited to GRPC, GraphQL, REST APIs, and related tools.
• Proven experience in a cloud focussed delivery role (DevOps or Software Development)
• You're proactive and you like to solve problems. You want to get involved and make things happen, ensuring the best outcomes for your team, the business and our customers
• Previous experience in a consultancy or professional services role
• Solid knowledge of cloud architecture principles and highly available systems
• Understanding of application development, delivery and infrastructure automation
• Comfortable writing production-quality software in at least one general-purpose programming language (e.g. Python, Go, JavaScript, Java, C++)

Nice to have Skills and Experience:

• Experience working in multi-cloud or with hybrid-cloud architectures
• Familiarity with cloud security frameworks (e.g. HashiCorp Vault, IAM best practices, container security tools)

Exceptional performance in this role can lead to advancement opportunities within our career framework or internal opportunities with other business areas, aligned with your career aspirations and business needs.

Financial:

• Competitive base salary.
• Matching pension scheme (up to 5%) from day one.
• Discretionary company bonus scheme.
• 4 x annual salary Death in Service coverage from day one.
• Employee referral scheme.

Health and Wellbeing:

• Private medical insurance from day one.
• app: access to remote GPs, second opinions, mental health support, and physiotherapy.
• EAP service
• Cycle to Work scheme.

Time Off and Flexibility:

• 36 days annual leave (inclusive of bank holidays).
• An extra paid day off for your birthday.
• Ten paid learning days per year.
• Flexible working hours.
• Market-leading parental leave.
• Sabbatical leave (after five years).
• Work from anywhere (up to 3 weeks per year).

Development and Recognition:

• Industry-recognised training and certifications.
• Bonusly employee recognition and rewards platform.
• Clear opportunities for career development.
• Length of Service Awards

Extra Perks:

• Regular company events.
• Tech Scheme.