Senior Platform Engineer

We are looking for a highly skilled Senior Platform Engineer to join our dynamic Platform Engineering & Technology team. In this role, you will be a key player in designing, building, and maintaining the foundational infrastructure that powers our internal platforms and enables software development teams to deliver applications more efficiently, securely, and reliably, all within an Agile and Kanban-driven environment. You will champion our 'platform as a product' philosophy by creating robust, scalable, and automated solutions. As a senior member of the team, you will provide technical leadership, mentor other engineers, and drive the adoption of best practices in infrastructure management and automation.

Wickes is a home improvement retailer which offers a wide range of products for DIY and home improvement, with a strong focus on serving both the local trade and general public, including kitchen and bathroom installations. We are currently undergoing a technical transformation replacing many of the key systems used to run and operate our business.

What you'll be doing Infrastructure Automation

• Design, implement, and manage highly available, scalable, and secure cloud infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles
• Deep expertise in core AWS services such as EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, VPC, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, IAM, KMS, etc.
• Optimize AWS resource utilization and costs while maintaining performance and reliability.
• Implement and enforce security best practices across all AWS environments.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex infrastructure and application issues in production and non-production environments.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and long-term cloud strategy.

CI/CD Pipeline Development & Management

• Architect, develop, and maintain robust, automated, and efficient CI/CD pipelines for various applications and services (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD).
• Implement strategies for continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment, including blue/green deployments, canary releases, and rollbacks.
• Integrate security scanning tools (SAST, DAST, SCA) and quality gates into CI/CD pipelines.
• Drive the adoption of best practices for version control (Git), branching strategies, and pull request workflows.
• Automate testing, build, deployment, and release processes to accelerate software delivery and improve reliability.

DevOps & Automation

• Champion a DevOps culture within the organization, promoting collaboration, shared responsibility, and continuous improvement.
• Develop and maintain automation scripts and tools (e.g., Python, Bash, Go) to streamline operational tasks and reduce manual effort.
• Implement robust monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Datadog, CloudWatch) to ensure platform health and performance.

Collaboration & Mentorship

• Collaborate closely with development teams, product managers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver effective solutions.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior engineers, fostering their growth and development.
• Participate in code reviews, design discussions, and architectural decision-making processes.
• Stay up to date with emerging AWS services, cloud technologies, and industry best practices.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure that security and compliance are built into the product roadmap from the outset.
• Work with security teams to ensure any changes or new deployments meet data protection and compliance requirements.
• Add all security recommendations from our vendor and hosting providers to the backlog.

Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Define KPIs and success metrics to measure platform effectiveness.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for our infrastructure, processes, and tools in Confluence.
• Continuously assess and refine existing products to support evolving business needs.

Does this sound like you

You'll have a Bachelor's degree in business, computer science, computer engineering, system analysis or a related field of study, or equivalent. You'll have significant experience (10+ years ideally) in a DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or Platform Engineering role. We also expect you have around a minimum of 7+ years of hands on experience designing, deploying, and managing complex infrastructure on AWS. You'll be able to demonstrate strong experience building and maintaining robust CI/CD pipelines from scratch and optimizing existing ones.

• Expert level proficiency with AWS services and a deep understanding of cloud architecture principles.
• Extensive experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, primarily Terraform.
• Strong expertise with Jenkins and GitLab CI/CD.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting language (e.g., Python, Bash, Go).
• Solid understanding of containerization technologies (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes/EKS/ECS).
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools (DataDog preferred).
• Strong understanding of networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, VPN, Load Balancing) and security best practices in the cloud.
• Familiarity with database technologies (relational and NoSQL).
• Experience with Git and collaborative development workflows.
• Familiarity with other Agile frameworks like Scrum, in addition to Kanban.
• Poise and ability to act calmly and competently in high pressure, demanding situations.
• The ability to manage ambiguity to clarify requirements and objectives to ensure successful outcomes.
• High degree of initiative, dependability, and ability to work with minimal supervision while being resilient to change.
• Motivation and drive to achieve long term business outcomes.
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment and contribute to the overall engineering and company wide technical direction.
• Excellent written, verbal, communication and presentation skills with the ability to articulate new ideas and concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences.

What's in it for you

We'll also equip you with a benefits package that includes:

• Competitive package including an annual bonus
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Enhanced contributory pension and life assurance
• Flexible hybrid working (2 3 days in Watford)
• Save as you earn scheme
• Colleague discount
• Discount platform including savings and cash back at numerous retailers, savings on gym membership, cycle to work scheme
• Well being strategy with Employee Assistance Programme, financial education & loans, and access to parental, menopause, and fertility support.

We're a Disability Confident Employer and committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We welcome applications from disabled people and are committed to providing an accessible recruitment process and workplace for everyone. If you require any support or reasonable adjustments, please let us know.