Head of DevOps

Head of Platform Engineering – AWS, Kubernetes, Hybrid Cloud - £150,000 - £170,000

A high-growth pioneer in life sciences automation is seeking a Head of Platform Engineering to lead the evolution of their software-defined laboratory platform. Operating at the intersection of robotics and AI, this organization orchestrates complex, mission-critical workflows across regulated labs and semi-air-gapped customer sites. As they scale into a multi-product and multi-region entity, they are seeking a strategic leader to move their platform from a reactive state to a hardened, world-class foundation.

The Head of Platform Engineering's role: This is a senior, high-impact permanent hire responsible for taking full ownership of the platform foundations across cloud and on-prem environments. Replacing a more reactive model, this individual will act as the final authority over platform architecture, tooling, and standards.

The Head of Platform Engineering will define the long-term technical roadmap, drive a culture of "ruthless simplification," and lead a small, high-performing group of staff-level engineers. While this is a strategic leadership position reporting to senior leadership, you will remain a hands-on technical contributor, leading by example and inspiring excellence across the engineering function.

Head of Platform Engineering Key Responsibilities:

• Platform Unification: Define and own a unified AWS and on-prem platform architecture that spans hybrid and customer-hosted deployments.
• Automation Strategy: Lead full platform automation using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitOps, and CI/CD to ensure environments are reproducible and auditable.
• Operational Excellence: Own availability targets across 20+ clusters and 4 regions, designing systems to maintain 99.99% uptime in highly constrained environments.
• People Leadership: Lead and inspire a team of Staff and Senior-level Platform Engineers, setting high execution standards and technical expectations.
• Security & Governance: Embed security deeply into the architecture, ensuring platform alignment with ISO 27001 and GxP regulatory requirements.
• Cost Management: Continuously optimize infrastructure spending by removing wasteful tooling, over-provisioning, and unnecessary platform complexity.

Head of Platform Engineering Requirements:

• Experience: 12–18 years of experience in platform, infrastructure, or SRE-focused engineering roles, with deep experience in mission-critical, 24/7 systems.
• Technical Mastery: Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes, containerization, CI/CD, and GitOps, primarily in non-Windows environments.
• Hybrid Cloud Expertise: A proven track record of running hybrid cloud and on-prem platforms in both startup and enterprise contexts.
• Strategic Leadership: A "hands-on" leader comfortable moving between high-level architectural strategy and operational discipline.
• Stakeholder Management: Confident communicating with senior leadership and product teams to translate business intent into technical roadmaps.
• Mindset: An outcome-driven leader who obsesses over reliability and believes the best platform is often the simplest possible one.

Are you a senior platform leader ready to define the foundations for a leader in life sciences? Do you excel at bringing structure to complex environments and driving a culture of execution excellence?

Please apply below!

Head of Platform Engineering – AWS, Kubernetes, Hybrid Cloud - £150,000 - £170,000