AWS Principal Platform Engineer (SC Clearance)

Appvia | London, hybrid (around one day a week on-site) | Permanent, full-time
£90,000 – £120,000 + 10% bonus + 10% shares + benefits

The opportunity

Appvia wants a senior, hands-on technical leader to shape how its customers build and run cloud platforms on AWS. As Principal Platform Engineer, you’ll lead platform engineering engagements from early solution design through delivery. You’ll set the technical direction, guide teams towards modern DevOps and platform engineering practice, and help customers end up with platforms that are scalable, resilient and secure.

The role combines engineering, architecture and consultancy. You’ll work alongside engineers, delivery leads and solution architects, and mentor teams through complex builds. Your influence will also reach beyond individual projects: the standards, patterns and approaches you help define will be reused across Appvia’s customer work.

Who you’ll be working for

Appvia is a specialist cloud and platform engineering consultancy and product house. It helps organisations reach Cloud and DevOps maturity by delivering modern platforms that let teams build, deploy and operate software securely and efficiently. Its aim is for every organisation to be able to deliver applications confidently in the cloud.

Its approach rests on strong platform foundations: automation, governance and developer enablement working together, so engineering teams can move faster without trading away reliability or security. Appvia supports public and private sector organisations on large transformation programmes and long-term platform evolution. Customers include the UK Home Office and the Bank of England.

The company is self-funded and London-based. It gives businesses a fast, secure way to deploy containerised applications to the cloud, with visibility of cost, security and delivery cadence. Appvia puts customers at the centre of its work and wants people who are keen to change how Dev and Ops work across the industry.

What you’ll be doing

• Working with new and existing customers to define and carry out their cloud and DevOps adoption strategies

• Leading large, complex public cloud projects, setting strategic direction and choosing the right technologies

• Managing teams of platform engineers and consultants and building a positive, collaborative culture

• Working directly with enterprise clients to understand their challenges and shape solutions around them

• Helping customers and the wider industry understand cloud-native technologies, their benefits and best practice

• Keeping up with new trends and technologies, and sharing that knowledge through blog posts and videos

What you’ll bring

You’re enthusiastic about new technology and automation, and you’ve led an engineering team using Agile and DevOps best practice. Appvia will want to hear about:

• Expert knowledge of continuous integration and continuous deployment

• Leading and mentoring others on industry best practice

• Working well with people at every level of technical ability

• Strong people skills and the ability to motivate a team towards a shared goal

• Project management experience

• Bid work and pre-sales engineering experience

Technical skills

• Platform engineering: mastery of designing and building scalable, resilient, secure platforms

• Public cloud: in-depth knowledge of AWS, Azure or GCP services, architecture and best practice

• AWS networking: expertise in designing and managing secure, scalable network architectures, including VPC, VPN, load balancers and Transit Gateway

• Automation and IaC: expertise in infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform and CloudFormation, plus scripting in languages such as Python or Ruby

• Containers: in-depth, hands-on experience with Kubernetes and managed services (EKS, AKS, GKE)

• DevOps: excellent knowledge of CI/CD, containerisation and serverless

Experience Appvia is looking for

• A track record of leading and delivering large, complex public cloud projects

• Extensive experience managing and mentoring teams and building a collaborative culture

• Significant experience working with enterprise clients, managing relationships and keeping customer satisfaction high

• A proven commitment to continuous learning and contributing to industry knowledge sharing

Certifications

Expert or professional-level cloud certification (AWS, Azure or GCP) is highly desirable, for example:

• AWS Solutions Architect Professional

• AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty (highly desirable)

Kubernetes certification is desirable:

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)

Security clearance and eligibility

You need to either hold active SC clearance or be eligible to obtain it. Eligibility means:

• A British passport or Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR)

• At least five years of continuous UK residence

• No criminal record

• No financial irregularities

Screening follows UK Government vetting standards and Appvia’s Information Security Management System. Successful candidates must also complete Appvia’s standard pre-employment checks, including right-to-work verification and references, and accept its confidentiality and data handling policies as part of their employment terms.

How the hiring process works

The process has four stages:

1. An initial discovery chat with Talent Acquisition

2. A paired technical assessment with a member of the Engineering team

3. A technical deep dive with Practice Leadership

4. A final, competency-based interview with Engineering Leadership

Benefits

Time and flexibility

• Flexible working hours

• Hybrid, outcomes-focused working

• 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays, and an extra day off for your birthday

• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave at full pay

• Workplace Nursery Benefit for working parents

Health and financial wellbeing

• Full private healthcare for you, with partners and children covered at 50%

• Pension, with a salary sacrifice option for extra savings

• Death in Service cover

• Cycle to Work and Electric Car schemes

• Employee Assistance Programme

• Free hygiene products in the London office

Mental health

• Free therapy through AXA

• Headspace app access

• Trained Mental Health First Aiders

Development and culture

• £1,000 annual learning budget

• MacBook Pro for the duration of your employment

• Dog-friendly office with a relaxed dress code

• Free office snacks, a pool table and a ping pong table

• Regular socials, board game nights and industry meetups

You can read what current employees say on Glassdoor, and follow Appvia on LinkedIn, Twitter and TikTok.

Equal opportunities

Appvia is an equal opportunities employer that values diversity of thought and background. Every applicant is considered without regard to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, veteran status, neurodiversity or disability.

Please note: every role is live and approved when posted. However, as a growing start-up, Appvia may sometimes use applications to build a talent pipeline for future openings rather than a current vacancy. It will try to keep you updated if your application’s status changes.