Senior Platform Engineer - Kubernetes

Location: Gatwick, GB

Salary: Up to £70,000 per annum dependent upon experience

Contract Type: Permanent - Full Time

Security Level: SC

Location: Either Cardiff or Gatwick based with hybrid working options

Visa Restrictions: This position does not offer visa sponsorship

The UK Civil Aviation Authority is the UK's aviation and aerospace regulator and a recognised world leader in aviation safety and innovation. Our Software Engineering function enables the organisation to deliver modern, resilient services that support our mission and the wider aviation community.

We are now seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to help evolve and operate our Azure Kubernetes platform for our Drones systems. This is a hands on technical role with significant influence across architecture, automation, systems reliability, and operational use.

As a Senior Platform Engineer, you will design, build, and support the platforms that underpin the digital services our drone's community uses. You will work closely with engineering teams, architects, and product to provide secure, scalable, and automated environments.

You will act as the escalation point for platform-level incidents, requiring broad troubleshooting capability across networking, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and application configuration.

You will help shape best practice in cloud engineering and contribute to the ongoing development of our platform strategy.

• Operate and manage Azure Kubernetes platforms, including cluster configuration, upgrades, and workload troubleshooting
• Lead incident resolution for platform issues and perform root cause analysis
• Build, maintain, and evolve cloud components across IaaS and PaaS services
• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps with YAML
• Implement and maintain secure networking patterns
• Apply cloud security best practices across identity, networking, secrets, and compliance
• Create and maintain platform observability using Azure Monitor, Analytics, and Application Insights
• Collaborate with engineering teams to ensure service reliability on the platform
• Contribute to architectural discussions and platform design decisions
• Promote best practice in cloud engineering and mentor other engineers where appropriate
• Coordination and support to junior team members both at the sprint and product level
• Maintain a mid/long-term view of platform best practices, tooling etc, and produce recommendations for improvement
• Ability to positively influence decisions and lead implementation of important platform changes.

You will have a background in AKS enabled DevOps Engineering, Platform management or similar role, Cloud experience in Azure and an ability to work across multiple applications.

• Experience with Microsoft Azure (IaaS, PaaS, identity, governance)
• CI/CD delivery experience using Azure DevOps and YAML pipelines
• IAC experience with Terraform
• Kubernetes experience, ideally with AKS (clusters, workloads, ingress, scaling, upgrades)
• Experience with Helm, Helm charts, releases, and repositories
• Experience of service mesh technologies
• Solid understanding of Azure networking: VNets, NSGs, routing, private endpoints, load balancing, etc
• Scripting proficiency in Bash, PowerShell, or Python

• Linux operating system knowledge and troubleshooting capability
• Experience implementing monitoring, logging, and observability solutions in Azure
• Ability to communicate platform issues like risk, platform health, cost etc to non-technical audiences
• Experience contributing to architecture or platform design
• Understanding of microservices and API-driven architectures
• Experience with SQL, Postgres, Redis, or EventGrid
• Prior experience in a Senior or Lead engineering role
• Experience working in hybrid cloud environments
• Strong understanding of cloud security best practice and secure platform design.

For many appointments within the CAA, these roles require access to operationally sensitive infrastructure and/or Nationally Protected information. For these roles the post holders must undergo National Security Vetting and achieve the appropriate level of clearance. We will usually expect a reasonable period of residency in the UK so that meaningful checks can be undertaken. For this role it will need to be 5 years. If you do not meet these requirements, we may not be able to accept your application.

The CAA values high ethical standards and personal integrity among employees. If invited for interview you will be asked to complete a declaration of interest.

We are passionate about diversity and ensuring all are included at the CAA. We are an equal opportunity employer and actively encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds. As a member of the Disability Confident scheme, applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a role with us will be guaranteed an interview. We use fair and inclusive selection approaches to hire the best person for the job based on merit alone. If you require an adjustment for any reason, please let us know.

We offer a range of excellent benefits such as flexible working arrangements, free onsite gym at Gatwick, discounted gym membership for London, 28 days annual leave, additional 5 days leave purchase scheme, a generous pension scheme and much more!