Lead Platform Engineer

Lead Platform Engineer London or Manchester 1/2 days per week. £100,000 - £120,000 + bonus I've been supporting the growth of this client for 3 years, who were 10 years old in January and this year enjoying their first full finanical year of profitability. It's a really exciting time to join. They are a technology-led fintech looking for a Lead Platform Engineer to take ownership of its internal platform product and lead the team building it. This role exists to make engineers more effective. This specific team team builds the tools, infrastructure and automation that remove day-to-day concerns from development teams allowing them to focus on delivering value, not wrestling with environments, pipelines or cloud complexity. You’ll lead a platform team of four engineers (with plans to hire an additional team member) responsible for building and evolving an internal developer platform used across the engineering function. We're looking for someone who is technical but ready to take that step up into management with the support of Senior Leadership team. The platform is treated as a product, not just infrastructure. That means reliability, usability and developer trust matter just as much as technical correctness. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone with delivery focus and backbone someone who sees a problem, takes ownership and drives it through to a practical solution. What you’ll be responsible for Owning the Cloud Platform and Developer Experience as an internal product, with a clear roadmap focused on reliability, reuse and developer productivityLeading a platform team delivering reusable CI/CD pipelines, shared infrastructure patterns and automation that engineers can rely onTaking on the “nitty gritty” infrastructure and platform concerns so product teams don’t have toImproving platform reliability and consistency so engineers can move faster with confidenceActing as a strong people leader — coaching, supporting and growing a small but high-impact teamIdentifying friction points in the developer journey and turning them into solved problemsDriving delivery end-to-end, from problem definition through to implementation and adoptionPartnering closely with engineering leadership and stakeholders to ensure the platform enables business growthEnsuring platform services meet security, operational and regulatory requirements About you You’ve led or built cloud platforms, internal developer platforms or DevEx tooling beforeYou think in terms of products, not just projects or infrastructureYou’re an up and coming people leader who will enjoy building teams and holding them accountable for outcomesYou’re delivery-focused, pragmatic and comfortable making decisionsYou enjoy solving hard, messy problems and taking ownershipYou have experience with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD and modern engineering practicesExperience in regulated environments is a plus, but mindset and approach matter most Why this role stands out You’ll own and shape a platform that directly impacts every engineer in the organisationYou’ll join at a point of rapid growth where the platform needs to scale with the businessYou’ll have real autonomy to improve how engineering works day to dayYour impact will be visible quickly Package Up to £120,000Annual bonus (paid for the last 7 years)25 days’ annual leave plus your birthday offPension contributionLife assurancePrivate medical coverHybrid working (2 days in office ideally, but will flex for the right person) And if you work 60 miles from office all travel is paid.