Principal EngineerSoftware Engineering (Specialist Softwa

Principal Engineer – Kubernetes & Software Engineering
12-month initial contract Frimley Hybrid working (2–3 days on site per week)
The Opportunity
We are seeking an experienced Principal Kubernetes Engineer to shape the introduction of containerised workloads into a core continuous integration environment. This is an architecture-led, hands-on role focused on establishing a secure, scalable and maintainable platform rather than simply deploying or administering clusters.
You will work closely with engineering leadership to define the architectural approach, engineering standards and adoption roadmap for Kubernetes-based CI capabilities. The role combines immediate integration, experimentation and analysis with longer-term technical leadership across multiple delivery programmes, balancing delivery needs, cost efficiency, governance and developer experience.
• Define the end-to-end architecture for CI workloads running on Kubernetes.
• Lead hands-on work in an on-premises Kubernetes environment, including deployment, maintenance, experimentation and analysis.
• Assess the impact of integrating external infrastructure services into existing CI designs.
• Produce technical findings, design recommendations and change specifications.
• Provide technical guidance and mentor less-experienced engineers.
Key Responsibilities
• Target architecture: Define workload isolation, networking, artefact flows, autoscaling and resource-management approaches for Kubernetes-based CI workloads.
• Secure container supply chain: Design image build, scanning and promotion processes, registry architecture, environment separation, policy enforcement and secrets-management integration.
• Observability and operations: Establish logging, metrics, monitoring, platform-level visibility and alerting.
• Migration strategy: Identify candidate workloads and create a phased adoption plan with clear risk controls and rollback strategies.
• Technical delivery: Deploy and maintain on-premises clusters and lead implementation experiments, testing and impact analysis.
• Engineering leadership: Set standards, influence design decisions, communicate findings and support the technical development of team members.
Essential Experience and Skills
• Strong experience designing, building and maintaining on-premises Kubernetes clusters; around five years’ relevant experience is preferred.
• Proven experience developing and deploying applications hosted on Kubernetes.
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes platform architecture, not only cluster operations.
• Experience integrating Kubernetes with CI/CD and DevSecOps tooling.
• Knowledge of container supply chain security.
• Experience with Ansible and Infrastructure as Code.
• Knowledge of IP-based network design and Linux operating systems.
• Ability to operate at engineering leadership and architecture level.
• Experience designing platforms and governance models for multiple engineering teams.
Desirable Experience
• GitOps tools such as Argo CD or Flux.
• Cloud-native build tooling such as BuildKit or Kaniko.
• Experience in complex, enterprise-scale engineering environments.