Senior Cloud Engineer – GCP / Kubernetes

We are looking for a Senior Cloud Engineer to take ownership of the cloud infrastructure supporting a major new data platform. This is a hands-on contract role focused on GCP, Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, CI/CD and observability within secure, highly regulated environments.

The Role

You will desiHqagn, build and operate a distributed cloud platform spanning edge and central Kubernetes clusters. The environment uses a predominantly open-source technology stack, placing particular emphasis on networking, inter-cluster connectivity, platform security and deployment into restricted environments.

You will work within an autonomous engineering team, establishing the infrastructure foundations that enable reliable and secure software delivery.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Designing and operating secure, resilient infrastructure within Google Cloud.

• Building and managing production Kubernetes clusters using GKE.

• Supporting a distributed edge and central cluster architecture, including replication between environments.

• Owning infrastructure-as-code and automated deployment processes.

• Developing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.

• Implementing monitoring, alerting and observability using Prometheus, Grafana and Loki.

• Hardening platforms through network policies, secrets management and identity controls.

• Supporting deployments into restricted, disconnected and air-gapped environments.

• Managing open-source infrastructure components rather than relying solely on proprietary managed services.

Essential

• Strong commercial experience within Cloud Engineering, DevOps, Platform Engineering or SRE.

• Deep hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker and container orchestration.

• Strong Google Cloud Platform experience, particularly GKE.

• Infrastructure-as-code experience using Terraform, Ansible or similar.

• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins or equivalent.

• Strong Linux systems administration skills.

• Good understanding of cloud networking and Kubernetes connectivity.

• Experience designing secure, hardened platforms.

• Current SC clearance or eligibility to undergo UK Security Clearance.

Desirable

• Experience delivering platforms into air-gapped, on-premise or restricted networks.

• Experience with multi-cluster or geographically distributed Kubernetes architectures.

• Scripting experience using Python, Bash or Go.

• Knowledge of Vault, Keycloak, PKI and secrets management.

• Experience with Cilium, eBPF or Kubernetes network-policy tooling.

• Kafka experience, ideally including Strimzi.

• Previous delivery within defence, government or another regulated environment.

• CKA or CKAD certification.

• Experience supporting large-scale data, streaming or machine-learning platforms.

The Details

• Duration: 6 months

• IR35 status: Outside IR35

• Rate: £500-£525p/d

• Location: Remote

• Clearance: SC cleared or eligible to obtain SC clearance

If you are a senior cloud specialist with strong GCP and Kubernetes experience who is comfortable delivering secure infrastructure within complex environments, please apply with your latest CV.