Senior Linux/HPC Project Engineer & Team Lead

Senior Linux/HPC Project Engineer & Team Lead
Hybrid Working with Offices near Haywards Heath, West Sussex
Package: Salary Circa £65k DOE + Benefits + Bonus

Join an international, next-generation HPC data centre organisation as a Senior HPC Engineer and Eastern Hemisphere Technical Project Team member. This is a varied, high-impact position with broad responsibility - blending Level 3 technical support, technical project delivery, leadership, and cross-team collaboration.

You'll take a lead role on technical projects: scouting and evaluating new technology, running proof-of-concept initiatives, implementing solutions, and presenting outcomes to a wide audience. With significant autonomy, you'll proactively identify and drive technological advancements and best practices, shaping both infrastructure and operations.

The current team is technically strong but needs a hands-on technical leader/architect to bridge the people-management gap. You don't need to manage a large team, but you do need to run meetings, gather updates, confidently communicate with the business, and deputise for leadership - whether you already have people leadership experience or are ready to step up.

Responsbilities

• Lead and deliver end-to-end technical projects: discovery, evaluation, proof of concept, implementation, documentation, and presenting outcomes to a wide audience.
• Provide 3rd line ("last line") escalation support for the most complex technical issues
• Work extensively on technical projects and proof of concepts, with a focus on next-generation data centre technologies (eg oil immersion cooling).
• Integrate new tools and technologies into business functions and continuously look to improve how existing systems operate.
• Act as a senior technical engineer/architect within an HPC and next-gen data centre environment.
• Serve as a strong deputy to senior leadership, stepping up to run meetings, gather updates, and communicate clearly with senior stakeholders when required.
• Present confidently to various audiences, propose new technologies, and ensure communication is clear and professional at all times.
• Promote collaboration, pull together a technically strong but introverted team, and support mentoring as needed.
• Be proactive and autonomous: identify improvements and solutions independently, and bring them forward for team consideration.
• Potential travel to support wider regional projects, including new data centre builds (especially within Asia-Pacific), as required.
• As/when available, join a 24/7 on-call rota (approximately 10% on-call allowance), once settled into the role and as dictated by team needs.

Requirements

• Strong technical background with advanced Linux engineering/architect-level experience; direct HPC background is highly desirable but not mandatory if you have high-level Linux and architectural skills and learn quickly.
• Proven ability to run technical projects end-to-end: from discovery through evaluation, proof of concept, implementation, documentation, and presentation.
• Experience integrating new technologies into business environments and improving existing systems.
• Ability to act as a hands-on senior technical engineer while also stepping up as deputy when needed.
• Comfortable running meetings, gathering updates, and communicating clearly and confidently with both technical colleagues and senior business stakeholders.
• Strong presentation skills; capable of proposing and explaining new technologies to different audiences.
• Team-oriented mindset-able to mentor, encourage collaboration, and help pull together a group of technically excellent but introverted engineers.
• Displays clear leadership potential or established leadership experience, with a willingness to develop people and stakeholder management skills.
• Proactive and autonomous: able to identify challenges and introduce improvements without waiting for specific instruction.
• Mature and experienced enough to fit as a senior technical leader
• Excellent communication in English, with experience engaging UK-based stakeholders.

Technical Stack/Skills: Linux Administration, HPC Environments/Clustering, Ansible, Puppet, GitLab, Terraform, Containerisation, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenStack, CI/CD, Scripting in Bash/Python/Perl, ITSM tools, Jira, Cloud Administration, Virtualisation, GPU Technologies, RAID Technologies, Oil Immersion Cooling, CCRBs. Relevant certifications: LPIC-2/3, CompTIA Linux+, ITIL Foundation.

What Makes This Unique

• Wide remit: combine projects, leadership, and L3 troubleshooting
• Discovery and adoption of emerging tech (eg, immersion cooling)
• Regional influence, with possible future travel across Asia-Pacific.
• Fast-growing, collaborative, close-knit team (4-5 core members).
• Hands-on role with lasting impact on team, tech vision, and operations.

Location: The office is near Haywards Heath/Burgess Hill and is easily commutable (15-35 minutes) from Crawley, Horsham, Worthing and Uckfield. Within an hour of Guildford, Woking, Royal Tunbridge Wells, South London, Maidstone and Eastbourne. Hybrid working is available, but candidates should ideally be within an hour of the office.

Visa Sponsorship: Visa sponsorship is available; however, prior UK-based experience is required. You must already reside and be settled in the UK with UK employer experience.

Deerfoot Recruitment Solutions Ltd is a leading independent tech recruitment consultancy in the UK. For every CV sent to clients, we donate £1 to The Born Free Foundation. We are a Climate Action Workforce in partnership with Ecologi. If this role isn't right for you, explore our referral reward program with payouts at interview and placement milestones. Visit our website for details. Deerfoot Recruitment Solutions Ltd is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.