Platform Engineer

Platform Engineer (AWS / Terraform / Kafka) – Fintech Payments PlatformLocation: Remote (UK/EU time zones)Contract: 7 months (to April ****)Start: ASAPTech Stack: AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes/EKS, Kafka, GitOps, Cloud-Native ToolingFocus: Platform engineering & solution build (not ops/DevOps)About the RoleWe're looking for a Platform Engineer to join a major UK retail group building a new Klarna-style fintech payments platform.This role sits at the heart of the cloud platform team and focuses on designing, building, and automating the core infrastructure that powers high-scale financial transactions.You'll work in a highly technical environment, collaborating with architects, backend engineers, and security teams to deliver secure, resilient, cloud-native foundations.This is a hands-on build role — not day-to-day ops or DevOps support.Key ResponsibilitiesPlatform Build & Infrastructure EngineeringDesign and implement scalable, resilient cloud platform components in AWSOwn Infrastructure as Code using Terraform (modular, reusable architectures)Build secure multi-account AWS environments following Well-Architected principlesDevelop internal platform tooling, automation, templates, and golden pathsSupport EKS/Kubernetes environments and microservice deployment foundationsEvent-Driven & Distributed ArchitectureBuild and support Kafka-based event streaming and messaging capabilitiesEnsure high availability, reliability, and idempotent service patternsWork with engineers to define infrastructure for distributed, real-time systemsObservability, Reliability & PerformanceImplement monitoring, alerting, logging, and distributed tracing (Datadog/Grafana/ELK)Ensure SLAs/SLOs for platform components are metContribute to disaster recovery design, multi-region readiness, and resilience testingSecurity, Governance & ComplianceEnforce best practices for IAM, secrets management, encryption, and network securityBuild guardrails, policies, and automated compliance into CI/CD and IaC workflowsContribute to platform risk assessments and mitigation strategiesCollaboration & Technical LeadershipPartner with architects, platform leads, and product teams to translate requirements into technical designsWork with developers to guide best practices for cloud-native buildsMentor engineers in IaC, automation, and platform engineering patternsSkills & ExperienceEssential5+ years in Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or Infrastructure EngineeringStrong experience with AWS (multi-account, networking, security, core services)Excellent Terraform skills, building modular and production-grade IaCSolid understanding of Kubernetes / EKS or similar orchestration platformsExperience with Kafka or other event-streaming technologiesHands-on with CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, ArgoCD)Strong understanding of monitoring, distributed tracing, and observabilityAbility to work autonomously in fast-paced, cloud-native engineering teamsNice to HaveExperience in fintech, payments, or high-throughput distributed systemsKnowledge of Well-Architected Framework, security engineering, complianceFamiliarity with service mesh, API gateways, or serverless componentsExposure to Python/Go/TypeScript for automation or toolingWhat This Role is NotNot day-to-day ops or supportNot traditional DevOps or SRE maintenanceNot basic provisioning or infra monitoringNot a junior cloud roleThis is a platform build position: architecture + IaC + automation + infrastructure foundations.