AI Platform Engineer

We are recruiting for AI Platform Engineers across all job levels to help shape, build and operate the infrastructure and services that underpin our AI platform, providing engineers with secure, reliable access to AI models and inference services.

Where this vacancy is being recruited across more than one grade, the successful candidate will be appointed to a specific assessed grade, and the applicable salary range will be that associated with the grade of appointment.

Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.

• Take ownership of the platform layer above our managed GPU infrastructure, including model serving, inference runtimes, AI gateways and supporting services. You will help make these capabilities easy for engineering teams to consume while maintaining appropriate controls around security, performance and availability.
• Using technologies such as containers, Kubernetes, vLLM and AI gateway platforms, you will deploy and operate scalable inference services, improve observability and performance, and investigate complex technical issues across the platform. You will also help establish engineering standards for operating AI services within a secure enterprise environment, including cases where the target system has no route to the internet.

We are a multidisciplinary team looking for candidates with a broad mix of skills and experience. You do not need to meet every requirement. What matters most is sound engineering judgement, adaptability and the ability to make a meaningful contribution.

• Experience operating shared or business-critical platforms
• Familiarity with large language models and the practical considerations of running them
• Experience troubleshooting distributed systems and performance issues
• Familiarity with infrastructure as code and CI/CD
• Effective communication and stakeholder engagement
• Curiosity and a drive for continuous improvement

• Linux, application and server administration
• Containers and container orchestration, such as Docker and Kubernetes
• AI inference and model serving platforms, such as vLLM, SGLang or similar
• AI gateways and API management, such as LiteLLM, Bifrost or similar
• GPU workloads, including performance, utilisation and resource management
• Programming and scripting, such as Python, Bash or Go
• Monitoring, observability and SRE practices
• Secure, resilient and scalable service design
• Authentication, access control, rate limiting and service integration
• Technical documentation and operational guidance

You must be eligible for full security clearance. For more information and guidance please visit:

At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We offer a comprehensive, company-funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work-life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we're here to help you thrive.

• Time to Recharge:
  Enjoy generous leave with the opportunity to accrue up to 12 additional flexi-days each year.
• Secure your Future:
  Benefit from our award-winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Your Wellbeing Matters:
  Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee-led networks championing inclusion and diversity (Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity).
• Rewarding Performance:
  Al…