Senior Platform Engineer

* this role is open to remote working within the UK. Successful candidates will be required to travel to their closest UNiDAYS campus (London or Nottingham) on occasion.

As a key member of our Platform team, this role presents an exciting opportunity to be part of a team that’s taking platform strategy, cloud automation and developer experience to the next level within UNiDAYS.

You will be working closely alongside our software engineering teams to understand first-hand where improvements can be driven to get a better developer experience and improve the productivity of our engineers. With a hands‑on approach, you will identify and drive improvements in our systems’ performance, reliability, scalability, security, and efficiency.

Our platform team also works to remove barriers for other teams and allow them to deliver faster, accomplished via shared tooling. We are also championing operational excellence throughout the business, focusing on automation and self‑serving capabilities.

It’s more than just lines of code; we are looking for a commercially‑minded Platform Engineer who can bridge the gap between user needs and business goals. You will have the ability to build resilient, cost‑effective solutions and navigate evolving technological development trends.

We’re aware that everybody is different and comes with differing experiences. If you don’t have all the skills/experience on our list but are keen to learn, please reach out as we are still keen to talk to you.

• Build, test, and implement cloud services via IaC
• Work closely with software engineers to understand where platform engineers can add value as well as assist and upskill on their cloud needs
• Identify new technologies & drive improvements across our platform, shared tooling, modules, & packages
• Strive to create new/improve existing self‑serving capabilities for software teams
• Monitor platform performance and identify areas for improvement with an SRE mindset for SLIs and SLOs
• Work to define, improve, implement and document best practices continually
• Participate in on‑call one week per month (typically 1 call a fortnight with a simple runbook in place to execute)
• Mentoring, training, and knowledge sharing with other engineers

• Strong cloud knowledge including hands‑on experience in a wide range of AWS cloud services
• Strong IaC background (Cloud formation & Terraform preferred), application deployment strategies & cloud architectural patterns
• ECS experience with clusters across several environments
• Working knowledge of security, networking, CDN, load balancing, and storage solutions
• Good understanding of CI/CD practices across multiple environments
• Development experience, with an ability or aptitude to work within our core languages (C#, python, Type Script)
• AWS/Terraform certification

• Database administration experience (MSSQL, RDS, Dynamo
  
  DB, Neptune, Redshift)
• Background of mentoring, training, or knowledge sharing with other engineers
• Knowledge of containerisation
• Operational experience in resolving incidents, incident management and conducting RCAs

• Confident & able to communicate freely with colleagues
• Strong team working skills
• Critical thinker & problem solver with a passion for continuous improvement
• Able to influence others
• Can give/receive constructive feedback
• Awareness of your strengths/weaknesses and interest in self‑development
• Be able to challenge and be challenged
• Taking pride in your work to deliver to a high standard
• Proactive about taking ownership

• Evaluate and measure your own performance and seek feedback for continuous improvement. You also commit to regular check‑ins and monthly 1:1’s with your line manager and to be proactive in completing your quarterly, Mid‑Year and End of Year reviews to ensure your manager has enough time to complete before the deadline.
• Ensure you complete all mandatory training and/or workshops set by the business or your manager.
• Ensure you are aligned with the UNiDAYS values & behaviours
• Everyone is important. Strong stakeholder management and can lead others.
• No BS, no jerks. Communication
• Be clear on…