Platform Engineer

Senior Platform Engineer - GCP / Kubernetes / Linux

Location: Stockport / Hybrid

Contract: 12 Months

IR35: Inside IR35

Rate: Competitive day rate

Working Pattern: Hybrid, with an expectation of around 2-3 days onsite initially and scope for greater flexibility once embedded

The Role

Ocho is working with a client in Stockport who is looking for an experienced Senior Platform Engineer to join their infrastructure engineering team on a 12-month contract.

The immediate focus is a major on-premise to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) migration, so this role is particularly suited to someone with strong hands-on GCP experience alongside Kubernetes and Linux.

This is a project-focused engineering role rather than a BAU support position. The team is responsible for designing and delivering new infrastructure and platform solutions, with long-term operational support handed over to a separate TechOps function once projects are complete.

You will work as part of a small senior engineering team, typically 3-5 engineers per project, helping design, build and improve cloud and platform infrastructure across a range of initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the migration of infrastructure and workloads from on-premise environments into GCP
• Design, build and improve cloud and platform infrastructure
• Work extensively with Kubernetes across containerised environments
• Provision and manage infrastructure using Terraform and other automation tooling
• Apply strong Linux systems administration skills across platform environments
• Contribute to cloud architecture, platform design and technical governance
• Improve infrastructure scalability, reliability and maintainability
• Support automation and standardisation across cloud environments
• Work with networking, IAM, security and infrastructure configuration
• Collaborate with senior engineers, architects and technical stakeholders
• Produce clear technical documentation and support handover into TechOps
• Provide senior-level technical input and recommendations across infrastructure projects

Essential Skills & Experience

• Strong commercial experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Previous experience working on cloud migration projects, ideally on-premise to GCP
• Strong hands-on Kubernetes experience
• Strong Linux systems administration skills
• Good experience with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code
• Strong background in Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering or DevOps
• Experience designing, building and improving production-grade infrastructure
• Good understanding of cloud networking, IAM and security principles
• Strong automation mindset
• Ability to work independently and take ownership of complex technical problems
• Comfortable operating in a senior engineering environment and making technical recommendations

Highly Desirable

• Helm
• AWS experience
• CI/CD tooling
• Monitoring and observability
• Cloud networking and VPC design
• Infrastructure architecture
• Governance and security best practices
• Experience simplifying or modernising complex infrastructure environments

The Ideal Candidate

You will likely come from a Senior Platform Engineer, Senior DevOps Engineer, Senior Cloud Engineer or Cloud Infrastructure Engineer background.

The strongest candidates will have genuine hands‑on experience across:

GCP + Kubernetes + Linux + Terraform

You should be comfortable building and improving infrastructure rather than simply deploying applications into an existing platform.

This role would suit someone who enjoys project-based engineering work, cloud migration and platform design without being tied into long-term BAU support.

Interview Process

The interview process is straightforward and consists of:

• Stage 1: 15-minute screening call
• Stage 2: 1-hour technical deep-dive with two senior engineers
• Stage 3: 15-minute final call with the Director of Systems Engineering
• Offer following successful completion of the final stage

Contract Details

• 12-month initial contract
• Inside IR35
• Stockport-based hybrid role
• Approximately 2-3 days onsite initially
• Potential for increased remote flexibility once onboarded
• Strong likelihood of extension, with contractor tenure potentially extending up to 36 months