Senior Manager, Delivery Lead

Aker Systems

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. PRINCIPAL ENGINEER – DATA PLATFORM Location: Remote (UK-based; Security Clearance Required) A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t currently hold SC clearance, we can support you in applying, provided you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. As a Principal Data Platform Engineer, you will define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and evolution of data platforms for a government client. You will operate at a systems and organisational level, shaping how data is ingested, processed, governed, and consumed across multiple teams and services. This role goes beyond hands-on engineering — it requires deep technical authority, cross-team influence, and strategic decision-making to ensure platforms are secure, scalable, resilient, and aligned to long-term business outcomes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KEY RESPONSIBILITIES * Define and own the technical strategy for data platform architecture, balancing short-term delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability. * Lead the design of complex, distributed data systems, including batch and real-time processing at scale. * Establish platform-wide standards, patterns, and best practices for data engineering, reliability, and security. * Act as a technical authority and mentor, guiding senior and lead engineers across teams. * Drive architecture decisions across multiple squads, ensuring alignment with enterprise and government standards. * Partner with architects, product leaders, and stakeholders to translate ambiguous requirements into scalable technical solutions. * Ensure high availability, fault tolerance, and low-latency performance across critical data services. * Champion engineering excellence, including TDD, BDD, observability, and continuous delivery practices. * Oversee data modelling standards and governance, ensuring consistency, lineage, and integrity across systems. * Lead cross-team incident analysis and root cause resolution, driving systemic improvements. * Evaluate and introduce new technologies, tools, and frameworks to evolve platform capabilities. * Provide technical leadership in client engagements, influencing decisions and managing senior stakeholder expectations. * Ensure operational excellence, including resilience planning, cost optimisation, and platform sustainability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REQUIRED EXPERIENCE & COMPETENCIES NON-TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES * Operating effectively in high ambiguity and incomplete problem spaces * Influencing senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams * Navigating complex client environments and competing priorities * Leading through technical authority rather than hierarchy * Driving alignment across multiple teams and domains * Continuously evaluating and adopting emerging technologies strategically ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES * Extensive experience designing and building large-scale, distributed data platforms * Deep expertise in Java-based systems and modern backend architectures * Strong experience with streaming and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis) * Experience with large-scale data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Flink, Kafka Streams) * Expertise in cloud-native architectures, ideally on AWS (including Lambda, S3, managed services) * Strong understanding of data pipeline design, orchestration, and optimisation * Experience with data modelling at scale, including schema design and evolution * Expertise in relational and NoSQL database design and performance tuning * Proven track record of implementing CI/CD, observability, and platform reliability practices * Strong experience with DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) * Ability to define and enforce engineering standards across teams ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DESIRABLE SKILLS * Advanced expertise in data modelling strategies and trade-offs across systems * Experience with search and indexing platforms (Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Solr) * Strong knowledge of CI/CD ecosystems (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Drone) * Experience with infrastructure automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, Packer) * Exposure to data governance, security, and compliance frameworks in regulated environments ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUALIFICATIONS * Degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent experience) * Typically 10+ years of experience in software/data engineering, with significant time spent in architecture or principal-level roles Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Aker Systems

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high-performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as “One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track. The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020, winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the Year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories. We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply. We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. Role Overview As a Principal DevOps Engineer, you will help lead the development and implementation of products to create secure and scalable cloud environments in AWS and Azure, leveraging the latest commercial and open-source technologies and techniques. This also involves building automated deployments using configuration management technology, deploying new modules, upgrades and fixes to test and production environments.     You Will: * Design, build, test and deploy cloud-based infrastructure and applications using CI/CD and Infrastructure-as-Code directly and as part of our product suite * Work with other engineers, architects and analysts to shape our DevOps products * Support deployment and operational activities of products into our clients’ environments * Assist with setup/maintenance of environments for both manual and automated testing * Assist in production support through the investigation and resolution of incidents * Perform ongoing routine application maintenance tasks * Be the senior technical contact for DevOps related matters and mentor to more junior members of the team Core Competencies The successful candidate will have a Bachelor's degree or greater. An equivalent of at least 10+ years' working experience in a DevOps capacity is also required for this position. You will have demonstrated the following competencies to the proficiency level appropriate to the seniority of the role: * Commercial Experience in deploying and operating infrastructure (network, servers, services) and applications on AWS and Azure * Developing and operating using open-source and commercial software within a cloud-centric environment * Strong IaC skills including Terraform and Terragrunt * GitHub/GitLab CI/CD experience to design, build and maintain pipelines for building and deploying our applications * Test Driven Development with appropriate tools and frameworks * Expert in cloud orchestration and containerisation technologies, i.e. Kubernetes and Docker * Knowledge of large-scale databases and distributed technologies, such as RDS * Knowledge of distributed event streaming technologies, such as Kafka * Knowledge of scripting languages such as Bash and Python * Experience of mentoring and leading people around you and taking point on key decisions Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team, we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help out our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. Benefits In return, we offer: * Competitive salary * 25 days holiday (excluding bank holidays) * Company Paid Medical Insurance * Life Assurance (4x basic salary) * Pension scheme * Perks at Work * Cycle Scheme * Tech Scheme * Season Ticket Loan * Plus, a list of voluntary benefits including: * Dental Insurance * Critical Illness Cover * Virtual GP Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.   Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

Baringa

ABOUT BARINGA  Baringa is a global consulting firm that partners with leaders to drive change and create value. With deep industry expertise, and enabled by advanced technology, the firm helps clients to deliver with greater confidence and certainty. With over 2,000 people across the UK, Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, the firm combines global insight with local understanding. The firm works across energy and resources, financial services, government and public sector, consumer products and retail, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, manufacturing, and technology, media and telecoms, with capabilities spanning strategy, transformation and operational excellence – all powered by advanced technology, data, AI and digital innovation. Clients value Baringa’s collaborative approach and the way its teams integrate seamlessly – all working with a shared understanding of what matters most. The firm is known for its kind, curious experts who listen closely and care deeply about client success as they help clients transform energy markets, modernise financial platforms, expand telecoms and digital networks through advanced data analytics, enable digital services in government, and unlock growth in consumer sectors. Certified as a Great Place to Work around the world, Baringa has been recognised by the Financial Times in 22 categories of its UK Leading Management Consultants rankings, and by Forbes for four consecutive years as one of the World’s Best Management Consulting Firms.   Our Solutions & AI Labs (SAIL) practice is looking for an experienced Senior Manager to lead consultancy engagements and grow our AI & Solutions Engineering capability. The Forward Deployed AI & Solutions Engineer role will lead the delivery of AI-enabled solutions embedded in our clients' teams, combining deep technical specialism with the commercial and leadership skills to grow and shape our practice.  This is a role for someone who thrives at the intersection of client advisory, technical architecture and hands-on delivery leadership – and who has a genuine passion for bringing AI solutions to production at scale.   Our Solutions & AI Labs (SAIL) practice focuses on helping clients control their data, turn it into actionable insights, and better leverage it through the use of AI and Machine Learning solutions directly embedded into business processes. We support clients across a number of industries and offer deep expertise in AI/ML, Cloud, Platform Engineering, and Managed Solutions.   What you will be doing  As a Senior Manager in SAIL, you will own and lead consultancy engagements end-to-end from shaping the opportunity and winning the work, through to delivery governance and team leadership. You will bring SME-level depth in at least one of AI/ML Engineering, Platform Engineering, or Software Engineering, and apply it to create real, lasting value for our clients.   Although we do not expect you to be an expert in all of the below activities simultaneously, our team consists of people who can work as advisors to our clients as well as bringing deep technical knowledge when needed. The profile of our typical engagements reflects that.   Key responsibilities span the following areas.   Engagement Leadership:  * Own and lead end-to-end delivery of complex AI and technology consulting engagements, taking accountability for scope, quality, risk and client outcomes.  * Lead and resource multi-disciplinary delivery teams including engineers, data scientists and consultants providing clear direction, technical oversight and people development.  * Manage engagement resourcing: forecast team requirements, work with practice leadership to staff engagements, and develop the talent pipeline through mentoring and support of junior practitioners.  * Proactively identify and manage delivery risks in complex stakeholder environments, escalating appropriately and maintaining client confidence throughout.  * Communicate clearly to both technical teams and senior client stakeholders, translating complexity into actionable insight and decisive recommendation.  * Conduct rigorous technical reviews and uphold engineering and delivery standards across every engagement you lead.   Business Development & Bid Support:  * Play a leading role in business development: identifying new opportunities, shaping propositions, and supporting or leading bids and tender responses for AI and technology engagements.  * Contribute to proposal writing, articulating Baringa’s capabilities and differentiators, including authoring technical and delivery sections of bid responses to client tenders and RFPs.  * Build and maintain strong client relationships, acting as a trusted advisor and developing opportunities for follow-on engagement.  * Support practice-level growth initiatives, including account planning, capability development, and go-to-market positioning for AI and solutions engineering services.   Technical Architecture & Delivery:  * Lead architecture design for AI-enabled platforms and cloud solutions, balancing technical excellence with delivery pragmatism and commercial realities.  * Provide hands-on technical direction where required – reviewing designs, code and delivery artefacts to maintain quality standards across the engagement.  * Champion the path from prototype to production: driving robust, scalable and secure AI deployments that go beyond proof-of-concept thinking to real business impact at scale.  * Act as a credible technical voice with client architects, CTOs and engineering leads, earning trust through depth of knowledge and a demonstrable delivery track record.  AI/ML Specialism  You will bring expert-level knowledge in at least one of the following domains, and working knowledge across the others:   Agentic AI & LLM Engineering:  * Design and build production-grade agentic systems using major LLM SDKs and agent frameworks; deep knowledge of RAG, MCP servers and prompt engineering at scale.  * Strong opinions on secure, resilient enterprise deployment of LLM-powered systems; current knowledge of the latest model capabilities and AI product stacks.   Machine Learning Engineering:  * End-to-end ML lifecycle expertise: feature engineering, model training, evaluation and production deployment, including MLOps, monitoring and drift detection.  * Practical knowledge of ML frameworks (e.g. scikit-learn, PyTorch, XGBoost) and cloud-native ML services (SageMaker, Azure ML, Vertex AI).  Platform & Cloud Engineering:  * Architecture and delivery of scalable cloud data and AI platforms on AWS, Azure or GCP; experienced with containerisation, IaC, event-driven architectures and CI/CD.  * Track record of delivering production Python services and APIs; working knowledge of cloud-native application patterns and release practices.   Software Engineering:  * Production-grade Python services (FastAPI, AWS Lambda, event-driven patterns) and front-end development with React/Next.js, Material UI and SWR.  * Cloud architecture design capability across major providers; rounded understanding of database trade-offs – relational, NoSQL, graph and caching strategies.  * Strong engineering practices: CI/CD, testing (Jest, Cypress, React Test Library), release management and security-conscious development.   * A genuine passion for AI solutions and specifically for the complexity of delivering them to production at scale. You should be as energised by the hard problems of operationalisation, reliability and governance as by the technology itself.   Your Skills and Experience   We're seeking a technically credible, commercially aware leader who brings a rare combination of delivery accountability, client advisory skill, and deep AI/technology specialism. You will be someone energised by the complexity of taking AI solutions to production at scale – and who can inspire a team and a client with that same passion.  * 7+ years in technology consulting, software engineering or AI/ML, with at least 3 years in a senior leadership role – including direct accountability for end-to-end engagement delivery, resourcing and commercial outcomes.  * Experience supporting or leading bid and proposal activity, including writing technical and delivery sections of responses to client tenders and RFPs.  * SME-level depth in at least one of: Agentic AI/LLM Engineering, Machine Learning Engineering, Platform & Cloud Engineering, or Software Engineering – with strong architecture and design capability across cloud, data and AI domains.  * Proven ability to build and lead high-performing delivery teams in complex stakeholder environments, with experience engaging comfortably at CTO or engineering director level.  * Clear, confident communicator – able to make the complex accessible for technical and non-technical audiences alike, and to represent Baringa’s expertise with credibility.  * Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Data Science or related discipline, or equivalent depth through relevant professional certifications (e.g. AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Google Professional ML Engineer).  * Desirable: prior experience as a forward-deployed or embedded engineer within a client environment; exposure to regulated industries such as energy, financial services or public sector.  If you are excited by the opportunity to lead meaningful AI and technology engagements for major clients and thrive in a collaborative, people-first culture that values both technical rigour and human connection we would love to hear from you.  JOIN US All applications received will be reviewed by a member of our Talent Acquisition team. We never rely solely on automated screening or AI tools to make hiring decisions. Your application will be considered for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age, faith or social background. We do not filter applications by university background and encourage those who have taken alternative educational and career paths to apply. We would like to actively encourage applications from those who identify with less represented and minority groups. We operate an inclusive recruitment process, ensuring reasonable adjustments where needed. Please contact a member of our Recruitment Team to discuss further.   BARINGA PRIVACY NOTICES For UK & EU Your personal data will be retained by Baringa for up to two years, in accordance with our UK Recruitment Privacy Notice / EU Recruitment Privacy Notice, to evaluate your application and meet our legal and reporting obligations. In line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to request access to, rectification, or erasure (subject to legal limitations) of your personal data. For more information, please contact us at privacy@baringa.com For the USA Your personal data may be retained by Baringa for up to two years, as outlined in our Recruitment Privacy Notice (AMER & APAC), to support the recruitment process and internal reporting requirements. Where applicable, and in accordance with relevant federal and state laws, you may have the right to request access to or correction of your personal information. For further details, please contact privacy@baringa.com For Australia & Singapore Your personal data will be retained by Baringa for up to two years, in accordance with our Recruitment Privacy Notice (AMER & APAC), to assess your application and meet applicable reporting and legal obligations. In line with the Australian Privacy Act and Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), you may have rights to access, correct, or request limited deletion of your personal data. For more information, please contact us at privacy@baringa.com