Senior Platform Engineer

Level: 4
Salary band: £70,000 - £80,000
Location:Hybrid - 3 days per week in London Office (Angel, Islington)

AtAutomata, we're on a mission to transform how scientists work by making automation accessible to every lab in the world. We believe that by giving labs the power to automate, we can unlock discoveries that will shape the future of life sciences—from diagnostics and drug discovery to synthetic biology.

But we’re more than just a company disrupting the industry—we're a team of innovators, problem-solvers, and creators passionate about empowering scientists. Our LINQ platform combines hardware and software to streamline workflows, making lab automation fast, flexible, and affordable. This means our customers can focus on groundbreaking research, while we take care of the rest.

Why Work at Automata?

• Impact: Your work will directly contribute to advancements in science and medicine, supporting labs around the globe as they push boundaries in research and innovation.

• Innovation: You’ll be part of a team solving complex problems (seriously, no one else has figured out how to do this yet), using cutting-edge technology (we have robots).

• Growth: We invest in our people. Whether through hands-on experience, professional development, or collaborative projects, you’ll grow both professionally and personally.

• Community: Join a diverse, passionate team that values collaboration (golf on a Thursday, Soccer once a month, movie nights whenever we fancy it).

We are looking for aSenior Platform Engineer to help build, scale, and operate the foundational infrastructure powering Automata’s LINQ platform. You will play a critical role in designing and maintaining robust, secure, and compliant systems that support deployments across cloud and on-premise (including bare-metal environments).

You will collaborate closely with product, software, and field teams to definegolden paths that accelerate developer productivity while maintaining high operational standards.

Why is this role important for Automata?
As a Senior Platform Engineer, you will ensure that Automata’s platform isreliable, scalable, and compliant, enabling successful deployments in highly regulated environments. Your work will directly impact customer success, internal velocity, and the platform's long-term maintainability.

In this role, you will be responsible for

• Designing, building and operating Kubernetes platforms acrossAWS and bare-metal environments

• Managing and optimisingPostgres databases, ensuring performance, resilience, and data integrity

• Developing and maintainingInfrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane, or similar)

• Implementing and managingGitOps workflows (ArgoCD) for consistent and repeatable deployments

• SupportingWindows OS provisioning and hybrid infrastructure environments

• Building and improvingobservability systems (OpenTelemetry, metrics, tracing, logging)

• Contributing tonetwork architecture and operations, including physical networking (Juniper/Mist)

• Supporting deployments inregulated environments (ISO27001, SOC2, GxP)

• Collaborating with field and customer teams onon-site deployments and troubleshooting

• Developing automation and internal tooling usingPython, Go, Rust, or .NET

• Participating in building orchestration workflows using tools likeTemporal

• Help define and maintaingolden paths for developers to improve productivity and reliability

• Contribute to documentation, onboarding materials, and operational runbooks

What it takes

• 5+ years of experience in platform engineering, SRE, or infrastructure roles

• Strong experience withKubernetes in production, including bare-metal clusters

• Solid understanding ofcloud platforms (AWS) and hybrid deployments

• Experience managingdatabases (Postgres/DBA-level knowledge preferred)

• Familiarity withGitOps and modern IaC practices

• Experience withobservability tooling and distributed systems debugging

• Understanding ofnetworking fundamentals, including physical infrastructure

• Experience working inregulated environments or with compliance frameworks

• Proficiency in at least one programming language (Python, Go, Rust, or .NET)

• Strong communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally

• Willingness totravel to customer sites when needed

• Experience withautomation/AI-assisted development workflows (e.g., Claude Code)

Nice to haves

• Experience withJuniper/Mist networking

• Exposure toTemporal or similar workflow orchestration systems

• Background in supportinglife sciences or GxP environments

Why You’ll Want to Join Us

• You want to operate at the edge of your capability - where expectations are high and impact is real

• You’re motivated by ownership and autonomy - not hierarchy or process

• You want to build and scale something meaningful - our product directly saves lives

• You’re currently under-leveraged, moving faster than your environment allows

• You want to work with people who are equally driven, pragmatic, and focused on outcomes

UK Team Benefits:

🍎 Vitality Health Insurance

👀 Eye Care

🚗 Salary Sacrifice - EV

🚲 Salary Sacrifice - Bike & Tech

🧘🏼‍♀️ Wellbeing & Support

☀️ Wellbeing & Development Allowance

💙 Spill & Employee Assistance Programme

😊 Additional Leave

👵🏼 Pension Scheme

🫂 Group Life & Critical Illness cover

We are an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Discrimination of any kind based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status is strictly prohibited.