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Principal Platform Engineer
Job Location:
Monthly Salary:
Posted:
21 August 2026 (Yesterday)
Posted:
Application Deadline:
18 November 2026
Application Deadline:
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Vacancies:
Department:
Job Summary
Principal Platform Engineer
Were building the UKs next generation engineering powerhouse providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.
We specialise in turning advances in sensing AI and communications into operational capability for the edge where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology improving decision-making for frontline teams and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.
Headquartered in Bristol Rowden employs around 200 people and operates over 20000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europes fastest-growing engineering businesses.
About the role
Were seeking a Principal Platform Engineer to define and lead the engineering platform that underpins how Rowden develops deploys and operates technology. The platform will improve developer experience and make Rowdens engineering faster more consistent more scalable and more secure. This is a high-impact opportunity to build the engineering foundations of one of the UKs most exciting technology companies.
Working closely with Software Infrastructure ML IT Product QA and Security teams youll lead the delivery of the platform vision define its architecture and raise the standard of engineering practice across the organisation. Youll ensure the platform scales with Rowdens ambitions and meets the demands of its engineering teams. This is a hands-on role; you will lead by building.
This role offers hybrid working with a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ.
For senior roles compensation is tailored to the scope of the role and the specific experience a candidate brings. Because that can vary significantly we do not always publish a fixed salary band. We will however discuss compensation openly at the first stage of the process and can share an indicative range before either side invests significant time.
This role offers hybrid working with a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ.
For senior roles compensation is tailored to the scope of the role and the specific experience a candidate brings. Because that can vary significantly we do not always publish a fixed salary band. We will however discuss compensation openly at the first stage of the process and can share an indicative range before either side invests significant time.
Candidates must be eligible for SC Clearance.
Key areas of responsibility
Working closely with the Head of Platform Engineering youll define and deliver robust platform services establish the patterns for self-service infrastructure CI/CD and observability and drive the integration of AI/ML capabilities across the organisation. Youll translate platform strategy into a coherent technical roadmap setting standards that teams across Rowden can build on with confidence.
As a Principal Platform Engineer you will be responsible for:
- Defining the technical architecture and long-term direction of Rowdens internal developer platform (IDP).
- Leading the design and evolution of IDP capabilities including self-service provisioning and deployment workflows.
- Defining the platforms approach to agentic AI establishing the patterns guardrails and runtime infrastructure required to deploy and operate AI agents reliably across the organisation.
- Setting standards for API-first architectures that enable interoperability between systems services and external partners.
- Owning the design and governance of CI/CD pipelines to support consistent secure and efficient software delivery across the organisation.
- Driving the adoption of modular platform capabilities that allow teams to compose and extend functionality at scale.
- Owning infrastructure-as-code standards and automation practices to ensure repeatability scalability and reliability.
- Embedding security compliance and best practices into the platform by design and ensuring these are sustained as the platform evolves.
- Defining and maintaining platform standards patterns and reusable components that drive consistency across teams.
- Leading improvements to observability monitoring and alerting capabilities across systems and services.
- Mentoring and developing engineers across the organisation raising the collective standard of platform engineering practice.
- Identifying and driving strategic opportunities to improve developer experience reducing friction and cognitive load at an organisational level.
Key skills experience and behaviours
We are looking for a technically deep strategically capable engineer who brings both hands-on expertise and the ability to shape how an organisation builds and operates its platforms.
Skills youll need:
- Extensive experience designing building and operating engineering platforms at scale.
- Deep understanding of platform engineering principles including infrastructure-as-code CI/CD system design service integration and platform product thinking.
- Experience designing platforms that support agentic AI workloads including the infrastructure and integration patterns required for autonomous task execution tool use and model orchestration at scale.
- Proven experience defining API strategies and building integration layers between complex systems.
- Extensive experience with using systems like Kubernetes Terraform and FluxCD in production scenarios.
- Strong understanding of modular platform design composable architectures and long-term platform scalability.
- Expertise in observability tooling - logging metrics and tracing
- Deep knowledge of secure-by-design and zero-trust principles with experience applying these at an architectural level.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals (e.g. Python Go or similar) to design and deliver platform tooling and automation.
- Deep empathy for engineering experience and a strong desire to improve it.
- Experience providing technical leadership across cross-functional teams influencing direction and building alignment around shared outcomes.
About you
- Mission-Focused: You care about enabling others to do their best work and delivering meaningful outcomes.
- Relentless: You take ownership and see problems through to resolution.
- Collaborative: You work effectively across teams building trust and shared understanding.
- Quality-Driven: You take pride in building robust scalable and maintainable systems.
- Pragmatic: You focus on solutions that work in practice not just in theory.
- Curious & Adaptive: You continuously learn improve and embrace new approaches where they add value particularly in fast-moving areas like AI and platform integration.
Working at Rowden
We are committed to building a flexible inclusive and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills experience and backgrounds so please apply and come as you are!
We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible hybrid-working model with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.
Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.
Finally if you feel that you dont meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience wed still love to hear from you!
Required Experience:
Staff IC
About Company
Rowden designs and builds systems, infrastructure, and applications to deliver mission advantage to those working to protect the security of the UK and its allies. We are setting a new standard in government technology provision: hyper-efficient engineering, better customer relationsh ... View more
