Principal Platform Engineer - Secure Environments

Job Description:

Your Impact Are you ready to take on complex technical challenges and help lead the delivery of secure platforms that support critical customer missions? At Leonardo, our Principal Platform Engineers combine hands-on technical expertise with engineering leadership and delivery oversight. You will shape the design, integration and implementation of secure platforms, while providing direction, mentoring, and support to the engineers delivering them.

Your work at Leonardo UK will see you take the lead in solving customer problems in an agile, innovative, and team-centric manner. Due to the nature of the environments supported, the role will require regular and sustained attendance at secure customer locations, alongside working at Leonardo sites where programme and security constraints permit. Due to the nature of the systems and environments supported, this role requires Developed Vetting clearance prior to starting.

This role is focused on delivering, maintaining and improving platform and systems engineering solutions that underpin critical defence, government and public-sector services.

• Act as a technical authority across one or more platform engineering domains, providing specialist expertise and direction to projects and programmes.
• Lead the design, integration and implementation of secure platforms across on-premises, highly controlled and, where appropriate, hybrid or cloud environments.
• Maintain sufficient hands-on technical involvement to support delivery, resolve complex engineering problems and provide assurance over the work of the wider team.
• Capture, analyse and interpret complex customer requirements, translating them into effective platform designs and deliverable engineering activities.
• Develop, review and assure high-level and low-level designs, ensuring alignment with secure-by-design principles, engineering governance and customer requirements.
• Take ownership of technical delivery within work packages, including planning, estimation, resourcing, risk management, progress reporting and technical acceptance.
• Coordinate and provide technical direction to multidisciplinary engineering teams, ensuring activities are delivered to the required cost, quality and schedule.
• Mentor, coach and develop junior and senior engineers, raising technical capability and promoting knowledge-sharing across the engineering community.
• Support recruitment, technical screening, interviewing and onboarding where required.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders, presenting technical solutions, reporting delivery risks and justifying engineering decisions.
• Drive continuous improvement through automation, reusable engineering patterns, common standards and lessons learned.
• Provide input to technology strategies, feasibility studies, innovation activities and future capability planning.
• Undertake line-management or people-leadership responsibilities where these form part of the agreed role.

• Extensive technical experience across platform and infrastructure engineering, with a track record of delivering secure and resilient solutions.
• The ability to combine hands-on technical engineering with technical leadership, delivery ownership and the coordination of engineering teams.
• Strong technical judgement and a problem-solving mindset, with the ability to assess options and recommend proportionate solutions to complex challenges.
• Experience providing technical direction, mentoring engineers and assuring engineering outputs.
• The ability to plan engineering activities, manage technical dependencies and clearly communicate progress, risks and decisions.
• Confidence engaging with customers, architects, project teams, service teams and…