Lead Platform Engineer

Lead Platform Engineer - Must be DV Clearable - 5 days a week on-site

Building the platforms that make AI and machine learning work in production We're looking for a

Lead Platform Engineer

to join a growing engineering organisation and play a pivotal role in

designing, building, and operating an MLOps platform

that enables AI and data science teams to deliver reliably in production. This is a

senior, hands-on technical leadership role , not a people-management position. You'll lead through

technical depth, judgement, and delivery , building the tooling, workflows, and operational foundations that allow data scientists and ML engineers to experiment, deploy, and run

ML and LLM-based workloads safely and at scale . The focus is not simply on running Kubernetes clusters - it's on

layering real MLOps capability on top of Kubernetes

to create a platform that is usable, supportable, and trusted in live environments.

What you'll be doing

You'll act as a technical leader across platform engineering, DevOps, and MLOps, remaining deeply involved in implementation. You will: Provide

technical leadership

across platform, DevOps, and MLOps activities Design, build, and operate a

Kubernetes-based MLOps platform

supporting the full model lifecycle ImplementandrunMLOps tooling that enables teams to:

Experiment with models and notebooks Package, version, and deploy models Run scalable inference and

LLM-based workloads

Build and operate

model serving and inference platforms

within Kubernetes environments Work closely with

data scientists and ML engineers

to ensure the platform is usable, well-documented, and aligned to real workflows Own platform

operability, reliability, security, and supportability

in production Troubleshoot complex issues across

Kubernetes, platform services, and MLOps layers Contribute to architectural decisions while staying

hands-on with delivery Apply pragmatic engineering judgement in environments where AI workloads place real operational demands on infrastructure

What we're looking for

This role suits someone who is fundamentally a

strong platform engineer , with the depth to apply those skills confidently to MLOps. Essential experience: Strong background as a

Senior or Lead Platform Engineer / DevOps Engineer Deep, hands-on experience building and operating

Kubernetes-based platforms Strong practical experience with

Helm

and

Infrastructure as Code

(e.g. Terraform) Proven experience extending Kubernetes with

higher-level platforms and services , not treating it as the finished product Strong understanding of operational fundamentals: monitoring, logging, incident response, reliability, and maintenance Comfortable working directly with engineers and data scientists to support

real production workloads

MLOps experience (key to the role)

You'll work

deeply 'in the weeds'

of MLOps platforms, enabling ML and LLM workloads (not model research). Experience in areas such as: Building or operating

MLOps platforms

using tools like

Kubeflow

or similar frameworks Running

model serving and inference platforms

(e.g. KServe, vLLM, or equivalent) Supporting

LLM-based workloads , including optimisation and serving considerations Providing notebook-based environments such as

JupyterHub

in secure platforms Exposure to emerging tooling such as

InstructLab , Trustworthy / Responsible AI tooling, or comparable solutions

Desirable experience

Building internal platforms specifically for

data science and ML teams Operating

AI-enabled or data-driven systems

in production Experience in

regulated, security-conscious, or high-assurance environments Designing platforms that balance

user flexibility with governance and control

If you believe

Kubernetes is the base, not the product , enjoy operating close to the metal, and like solving hard platform problems that enable others to succeed, this role offers real challenge and impact. If interested, apply now!

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Vertage Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.

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