Staff Cloud Platform Engineer

Role OVO-View

This Staff Cloud Platform Engineer role at OVO is hybrid, based in Bristol, Glasgow, or London, with a salary banding of £64,070 - £84,569. This is a full-time, expert-level position reporting to the Delivery & Growth Lead. Unfortunately, OVO cannot offer sponsorship for this role.

This role in 3 words: Architecting, Orchestration, Enablement.

Top 3 qualities for this role: Strategic, Visionary, Pragmatic.

Where you’ll work

As a hub-based employee, you're expected to be in one of OVO's offices (Bristol, Glasgow, or London) at least once a week and attend OVO Connection events in-person. Each hub provides accessible, inspiring spaces for connection and innovation.

Everyone belongs at OVO

OVO is committed to solving the climate crisis through its Plan Zero mission. They believe in the power of diverse teams and welcome individuals from all backgrounds, abilities, gender identities, ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, and life experiences to join them.

Teamworking for the planet

The Evergreen and CloudOps teams are central to OVO's customer-focused technology transformation. Their mission is to build a scalable and efficient service for hosting OVO's applications, making it easier for teams to use GCP while reducing CO2 emissions through smart cloud service usage, directly supporting OVO's Plan Zero.

This role in a nutshell

As a Staff Cloud Platform Engineer, you will be instrumental in shaping the future of OVO’s cloud ecosystem. Your primary responsibilities include leading the design, building, and maintenance of platforms that power OVO's products and services. You will establish architecture and security standards across cloud environments, particularly Kubernetes, and guide teams in delivering reliable, scalable, and secure solutions. This position offers the opportunity to influence technical direction, drive strategic platform initiatives, and mentor talented engineers.

Your key outcomes will be:

• Design and deliver scalable, reliable, and secure cloud and platform architectures, with a particular focus on Kubernetes.
• Define and lead the strategic roadmap for OVO’s in-house GKE based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.
• Support teams’ adoption and usage of the platform and actively participate in support rotas and on-call activities.
• Establish and maintain security and compliance standards that safeguard OVO's infrastructure and data, in line with industry best practice and internal policies.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship, empowering engineering teams and fostering a culture of collaboration, learning, and continuous improvement.
• Lead architectural reviews to ensure solutions align with OVO’s technical vision and organisational goals.
• Contribute to OVO’s Community of Practices by sharing expertise, leading discussions, creating content, and supporting cross-team knowledge exchange to promote best practice and continuous learning.

You'll be successful in this role if you:

• Have extensive experience in cloud and platform infrastructure engineering, with deep expertise in GCP, Kubernetes, and designing scalable, resilient, highly available architectures.
• Possess a strong understanding of cloud and platform security and compliance frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC2), with experience in cost management and optimisation of cloud resources.
• Are proficient in Linux, automation, infrastructure-as-code practices, GitOps, and CI/CD orchestration.
• Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes networking, role-based access control (RBAC), and security, with experience in disaster recovery architecture and production performance optimisation.
• Are a skilled mentor and collaborative leader, able to share knowledge, influence multiple teams, and drive strategic outcomes.
• Exhibit exceptional analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with a pragmatic, team-oriented approach.
• Are passionate about fostering learning, growth, and a culture of technical excellence.

Let’s talk about what’s in it for you:

OVO offers a salary between £64,070 and £84,569, dependent on skills and experience, along with an on-target bonus of 15% tied to collective performance and Plan Zero goals. Additionally, you'll receive 9% Flex Pay (4% auto-enrolled into pension, 5% for flexible benefits or cash). Benefits include 34 days holiday, a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance, critical illness cover, life assurance, gym membership, travel insurance, workplace ISA, and discounts on OVO Energy plans, solar, smart thermostats, and EV chargers. Commute benefits include ultra-low emission car leasing, cycle-to-work, and season ticket loans. OVO fosters belonging through 8 employee-led Belonging Networks.

Key skills/competency

• Cloud Architecture
• Kubernetes
• GCP (Google Cloud Platform)
• Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
• GitOps
• CI/CD
• Cloud Security
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
• Linux
• Mentorship