Technical Lead Edge Platform

VoCoVo specialises in innovative communication solutions tailored for businesses particularly within the retail sector. Our flagship products are designed to create a connected store experience facilitating seamless communication among retail staff to enhance efficiency and elevate customer service. We empower teams to collaborate effortlessly and achieve their retail goals. Youve probably already seen us in action were trusted by Tesco Asda Dunelm and Iceland just to name a few.

With over 250000 users across more than 10000 locations in 21 countries and recognition as one of the top 100 best small-to-medium size businesses to work for join us on our journey!

Role Overview
At VoCoVo our retail communications solution runs on a large estate of Linux-based edge devices our Controller deployed at customers premises. These devices are the beating heart of our in-store experience and keeping them reliable secure and up to date at scale is a serious engineering challenge.

As Technical Lead you will report to the Head of Architecture and Platform with day-to-day support from a Principal Platform Engineer. Youll lead a newly formed Edge Platform Team responsible for the OS runtime environment and device management infrastructure that underpins our entire on-premise estate. You will own the evolution of our Edge Platform moving us from our current home-grown Debian-based OS towards a modern production-grade edge computing platform including the evaluation and adoption of Kubernetes at the edge and immutable OS images.

This is a platform engineering role where your customers are VoCoVos internal development teams you will work closely with these stream-aligned teams who build and operate workloads at the edge as well as the Platform Operations Internal Developer Experience and Cloud Applications teams who contribute to our broader technical architecture. You will engage regularly with the technical leadership team for Product Development and will split your time approximately 60% on technical leadership and 40% on line management and team building.

Please note to apply for this position you must be based in the UK and have the legal right to work in the UK. This role is largely remote but would require visits to our Oxfordshire or Cheltenham offices approximately once a month for team meet-ups/key meetings.

What were looking for

• Deep hands-on experience with Linux including system configuration init systems networking and storage.

• Experience working with edge or embedded Linux including building or maintaining distributions or custom OS images (Debian/Ubuntu-based would be a strong plus but not essential).

• Cloud-native engineering experience ideally with Go and Kubernetes (controller mechanisms Kubebuilder) with familiarity in TypeScript being a bonus.

• Strong hands-on experience with container orchestration using Kubernetes in production ideally with lightweight or edge-focused distributions (K3s K0s MicroK8s).

• Experience with image build tooling and immutable OS concepts familiarity with tools such as Kairos OSTree is highly desirable.

• Practical exposure to observability at scale including metrics logging alerting (Prometheus Grafana Loki) and hands-on experience with OpenTelemetry.

• Experience operating or building infrastructure to manage monitor and update large fleets of remote devices.

• Strong communication skills with the ability to clearly explain platform concepts to engineers architects and non-technical stakeholders.
  

Nice to have skills

• Experience with OTA (over-the-air) update frameworks such as RAUC Mender or SWUpdate.

• Familiarity with GitOps workflows and tools such as Flux or ArgoCD.

• Experience working with messaging protocols such as MQTT or Sparkplug IoT.

• Scripting and test automation experience (Bash Goss Serverspec).

• Experience working with cloud platforms ideally Azure.

• Experience delivering solutions in retail or other complex real-world environments.
  

What youll do

• Lead the teams technical work on the VoCoVo Edge Platform from OS image build pipelines through to runtime orchestration and device lifecycle management.

• Own the evaluation adoption and rollout of Kubernetes at the edge across our device estate.

• Drive the evolution of our OS towards maintainable immutable production-grade edge images.

• Design and implement secure reliable over-the-air (OTA) update mechanisms for OS and workload delivery at scale.

• Take ownership of the edge platforms observability reliability and security including driving adoption of OpenTelemetry across the edge estate.

• Contribute to the technical roadmap researching new approaches and producing demonstrations and proofs of concept.

• Provide day-to-day line management for a team of 34 engineers supporting delivery and team wellbeing.

• Build and nurture a supportive inclusive and enjoyable team environment where people can thrive.

• Coach and develop team members supporting both VoCoVos goals and individual career growth.

• Collaborate with the Software Architect and other Team Leads to make and document well-reasoned evidence-based architectural decisions.

• Proactively identify and mitigate technical risks particularly those associated with operating at scale in real-world retail environments.

• Plan ahead to support the needs of stream-aligned teams building on the platform.

• Conduct code reviews and champion high engineering standards to ensure quality and consistency.

• Act as a technical sounding board and peer reviewer for other VoCoVo teams.

• Identify skill gaps within the team and address them through targeted training and recruitment.

Salary
Salary range: 80000 - 85000

Benefits

• 25 Days Holiday Bank Holidays (increases with years of service)

• Option to buy or sell 5 days holiday each year

• Sick Pay - 8 weeks full pay 4 weeks half pay

• Life Assurance - (4 times basic pay)

• Private Medical Insurance

• Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP)

• Cycle2Work Scheme

• Electric car green salary sacrifice scheme

• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity package

• Child Care Scheme

• Training & development opportunities

• Company organised events

• Pension (Royal London Group) 5% employer contribution matched

• Apple MacBook Wireless Magic Mouse and Keyboard monitor and headphones
  

Diversity and Inclusion
At VoCoVo we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued respected and empowered to thrive. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and experiences. Our commitment is to create an environment that champions equity innovation and collaboration ensuring all team members can flourish. Join us in shaping the future together.

We are also committed to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process so please let us know if you need any reasonable adjustments at any stage.

Company Values
Embracing VoCoVos VOICE Values is important to us shaping our collaborative and innovative culture.

VALUED
Our Colleagues Customers and Stakeholders are valued; treated with respect empathy and operate with honesty and integrity
ONE TEAM
Collaboration of all for VoCoVos happiness and success
INNOVATION
Our products are constantly evolving to tackle the pain points of retailers across the globe
CUSTOMER FOCUSED
Our customers love VoCoVo at every level every interaction with us is frictionless and we are integral to their operations
EMPOWERED
Our people are empowered to do the right thing and make decisions without loads of red tape

If you feel this could be the right fit apply now!