Kubernetes Tech Lead

Kubernetes Platform Tech Lead (Contract)

Location: Hybrid

Duration: Initial contract until end of the year

Client: Consulting firm supporting a major Financial Services organisation

Overview

We’re looking for an experienced Kubernetes Platform Tech Lead to play a key role in shaping and evolving a highly resilient, scalable, and developer-friendly Kubernetes platform on Google Cloud.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll guide a team of engineers, influence platform strategy, and act as the technical authority for a modern cloud-native platform. You’ll work closely with platform ownership, DevOps teams, and wider stakeholders to deliver a best-in-class Kubernetes offering, while helping drive the organisation’s journey toward a multi-cloud platform strategy.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead the design, build, and evolution of a GKE-based Kubernetes platform, enabling seamless application deployment
• Guide and support engineers through complex technical challenges, providing hands-on leadership and mentoring
• Act as the technical face of the platform, engaging with stakeholders and supporting customer queries
• Partner with the Platform Owner to support work estimation, prioritisation, and stakeholder management
• Contribute to and influence strategic platform direction, including architecture and tooling decisions
• Play a key role in evolving the platform toward a multi-cloud capability
• Engineer solutions using automation and Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform, Python, Helm, Flux, Tekton)
• Oversee and optimise a fleet of Kubernetes clusters from a centralised platform
• Ensure adherence to security, risk, and operational standards (networking, logging, monitoring, resilience, etc.)
• Support and enhance CI/CD and continuous testing pipelines
• Drive platform reliability, including upgrades, patching, and non-functional testing
• Maintain high-quality documentation and promote best practices across engineering teams
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rota

What You’ll Need

• Strong, hands-on experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native platform engineering
• Proven experience in a technical leadership or lead engineer role
• Experience building and scaling Kubernetes platforms (ideally GKE, but other cloud experience considered)
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation (e.g. Terraform, Python)
• Deep understanding of CI/CD, GitOps, and modern DevOps practices
• Experience with Kubernetes tooling (Helm, Kustomize, kpt)
• Programming experience in Python or Go
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills and ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly
• Experience working in Agile environments
• Ability to evaluate and adopt new tools and technologies

Nice to Have

• Google Cloud certifications (ideally Professional level)
• Kubernetes certifications (CKA / CKAD / CKS)
• Experience with GitOps tools (FluxCD, ArgoCD)
• Experience implementing multi-cloud platforms
• Strong observability experience (Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud Monitoring)
• Experience working in regulated environments (e.g. Financial Services)

Why Apply?

• Opportunity to lead a critical Kubernetes platform within a large enterprise environment
• Influence technical strategy and platform direction
• Work with modern cloud-native tooling and practices
• Be part of a collaborative, forward-thinking engineering culture
• Hybrid working with flexibility across multiple UK locations