Principal Platform Engineer (AWS) £120,000 – £140,000 + benefits
Remote-first (UK) with occasional client-site travel
We're hiring for a brand-new Principal Platform Engineer role for one of our long standing clients and looking for a cool person who wants to shape, not just deliver, cloud platforms at scale.
The company design and build some of the most secure AWS environments in the UK, supporting national security, defence, and highly regulated public sector organisations.
This is a 60% hands-on / 40% hands-off role, ideal for a senior engineer who still loves being close to the tech, but also thrives on architecture ownership, stakeholder influence, and team leadership.
You’ll play a pivotal role in defining AWS platform strategy, leading delivery across complex programmes, and acting as a trusted technical voice for both clients and internal teams. If you’ve worked with AWS Landing Zones at scale, this is where you’ll do your best work. (but that's not essential)
What you’ll be doing
Own and evolve AWS platform architecture across complex, multi-account, highly secure environments
Design, implement and optimise AWS Landing Zones,
Act as a technical leader and escalation point across multiple projects and client engagements
Balance hands-on engineering with technical leadership, design authority and stakeholder management
Build and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, CloudFormation and AWS CDK
Embed security-by-design, integrating services such as IAM, KMS, GuardDuty, Security Hub and Inspector
Design CI/CD pipelines enabling self-service, repeatable and auditable deployments
Partner closely with AWS, internal delivery teams, and senior client stakeholders
Mentor and lead engineers, raising the bar for engineering quality, documentation and best practice
Skills: Essential
Significant hands-on experience designing and running AWS platforms at scale
Strong background in secure cloud architecture for regulated environments
Proven experience balancing technical delivery with leadership and stakeholder management
Infrastructure as Code expertise (Terraform / CloudFormation / CDK)
Strong understanding of AWS networking, IAM, encryption and security patterns
Eligibility for SC clearance
Nice to have
AWS Landing Zone accelerator or framework experience
Kubernetes / EKS and container platforms
Observability tooling (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, OpenTelemetry)
Python, Go or similar for automation
Experience working directly with AWS on architecture or delivery
The nitty and gritty:
£120,000 – £140,000 salary depending on experience
Remote-first working, with meaningful but limited client travel
Opportunity to shape a new role with real autonomy and influence
Work on nationally critical, genuinely interesting projects
Collaborate with senior engineers, AWS specialists and industry leaders
25 days holiday + bank holidays
Up to 5% employer pension contribution
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