Cloud Platform Architect; Private Cloud

Position: Cloud Platform Architect (Private Cloud)
Role:
Senior Cloud Platform Architect (Private Cloud)

Location:

Sheffield, UK(Hybrid, 2 days in a week)
6 Months contract
Job description
Responsibilities:
Define and drive Private Cloud architecture aligned with Client Cloud Strategy
Provide hands on technical leadership across virtualization containers Kubernetes, Kafka and microservices platforms
Review architecture designs and ensure solutions are secure scalable resilient and cost effective
Establish engineering standards reference architectures reusable patterns and platform guardrails
Lead the design and evolution of private cloud platform components including compute storage networking orchestration and platform services
Drive platform consistency across development testing and production environments
Translate business and technology requirements into actionable platform engineering roadmaps
Own Kubernetes architecture decisions including cluster design multitenancy ingress service mesh secrets management observability upgrade strategies and workload onboarding
Establish Git Ops CICD automation and configuration management standards
Provide technical leadership for Kafka and Event Driven Architecture adoption
Define Kafka governance partitioning strategies resiliency patterns schema management monitoring and capacity planning
Guide engineering teams on microservices architecture domain design resiliency API contracts and operational readiness
Improve developer experience through self service capabilities templates golden paths and platform tooling
Embed Security by Design identity management vulnerability management auditability and operational excellence practices
Collaborate with Product Owners Architects Engineering Teams Cyber Security and SRE teams
Influence technical strategy and engineering decisions across CTO platform domains
To be successful in this role you should have
Proven experience as a Senior Architect Lead Engineer Staff Engineer Platform Architect or equivalent
Strong Private Cloud and Platform Engineering background
Deep expertise in at least two of the following
VMware or Virtualization Technologies
Kubernetes and Container Platforms
Kafka Event Streaming Platforms
Strong Kubernetes experience including cluster operations networking upgrades multitenancy policy management observability and workload onboarding
Strong Kafka architecture operations governance security and capacity planning experience
Deep understanding of Distributed Systems Networking Fault Tolerance Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning

Experience with Infrastructure as Code IaC and CICD practices
Strong understanding of Security Controls Change Management Risk Management and Production Readiness
Experience working in regulated enterprise environments
Strong stakeholder management and technical leadership skills
Excellent communication and architecture documentation capabilities

Experience with Service Mesh technologies is desirable
Knowledge of API Gateways Secrets Management and Policyas Code is preferred

Experience with Observability platforms including Metrics Logs and Traces
Experience building Platformasa Product capabilities such as developer portals and self service platforms
Knowledge of Multi Region Active Active and Resilience Testing architectures is advantageous
Mandatory Skills :
Kafka, Kubernetes, Microservices, VMware and Virtualization