Senior Cloud Platform Engineer

Sword is a leading provider of business technology solutions within the Energy, Public and Finance Sectors, driving real transformation change within our clients.  We use proven technology, specialist teams and domain expertise to build solid technical foundations across platforms, data and business applications.  We have a passion for using technology to solve business problems, working in partnership with our clients to help in achieving their goals.

Sword is looking for a Senior Cloud Platform Engineer to take operational ownership of public cloud and hybrid cloud services across our managed customer environments.

This is a hands-on senior engineering role for someone who understands what it takes to run production cloud services. You’ll work across cloud platforms, hybrid connectivity, identity, governance, security, automation, monitoring, backup and recovery. Your focus will be service health, resilience and continual improvement, rather than completing isolated technical tasks.

You’ll act as a senior technical escalation point for complex incidents, major service issues and high-priority requests. We need someone who can diagnose problems across cloud, network, identity, security, infrastructure and application dependencies, restore service under pressure and then address the underlying cause. Closing the ticket isn’t enough if the problem is likely to return.

What you’ll be doing

• Own the operational health, reliability, security and continual improvement of customer public cloud and hybrid cloud services.
• Operate and maintain services across major public cloud platforms, covering compute, storage, networking, identity, security, monitoring, backup and recovery.
• Support hybrid cloud environments connecting public cloud services with on-premises datacentres, private cloud platforms, edge locations and legacy systems.
• Manage the technical dependencies between cloud platforms, virtualisation, operating systems, networks, identity services, databases and applications.
• Apply and improve cloud governance controls, including policy, access management, configuration standards, compliance monitoring, resource classification and cost oversight.
• Develop and maintain automation and infrastructure-as-code for deployment, configuration, validation, remediation, reporting and recurring operational tasks.
• Act as the senior technical escalation point for complex incidents, performance issues and service failures spanning public cloud and hybrid environments.
• Identify root causes, recurring failures, configuration drift, capacity constraints and technical debt, then drive corrective and preventative action.
• Plan and implement controlled platform changes, assessing security, resilience, interoperability, performance, cost, service impact and ongoing supportability.
• Support onboarding and service transition by ensuring environments are documented, observable, recoverable, governed and ready for live managed service operation, while providing technical leadership and mentoring across the engineering team.

• Typically 5+ years’ experience in enterprise IT operations, managed services, consultancy or complex in-house environments, with substantial responsibility for production public cloud and hybrid cloud services.
• Relevant professional certifications across major public cloud platforms, such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, at administrator, engineer, security, networking or architect level.
• ITIL Foundation or an equivalent service-management qualification, supported by practical experience of incident, problem, change, service request and knowledge management.
• Strong technical knowledge of public cloud, private cloud and hybrid cloud architectures, including compute, storage, networking, virtualisation, identity, security, backup, recovery and platform services.
• Demonstrable experience supporting hybrid environments that connect public cloud platforms with on-premises datacentres, private cloud platforms, edge locations, enterprise networks and legacy workloads.
• Strong understanding of cloud governance, including policy enforcement, access control, privileged access, configuration standards, tagging, compliance, cost management and operational guardrails.
• Proven ability to diagnose complex service issues across cloud platforms, operating systems, networks, identity services, security controls, databases, applications and third-party integrations.
• Experience using observability platforms, cloud-native telemetry and service data to assess health, improve alert quality, reduce operational noise and identify emerging risks.
• Practical experience of automation, scripting and infrastructure-as-code using technologies such as PowerShell, Bash, Python, Terraform or provider-native deployment frameworks.
• Strong managed service capability, including technical escalation, root-cause analysis, controlled change, operational readiness, documentation, customer communication, supplier coordination and mentoring less-experienced engineers.

At Sword, our core values and culture are based on caring about our people, investing in training and career development and building inclusive teams where we are all encouraged to contribute to achieve success.

We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life.  In addition to a Competitive Salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:

Personalised Career Development: We create a development plan customised to your goals and aspirations, with a range of learning and development opportunities within a culture that encourages growth.

Flexible working: Flexible work arrangements to support your work-life balance.  We can’t promise to always be able to meet every request, however are keen to discuss your individual preferences to make it work where we can.

A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes, an employee assistance programme, discounted cash plan and more…..

At Sword we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer, ensuring that all applicants receive fair and equal consideration for employment, regardless of whether they meet every requirement.  If you don’t tick all the boxes but feel you have some of the relevant skills and experience we’re looking for, please do consider applying and highlight your transferable skills and experience.  We embrace diversity in all its forms, valuing individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. Your perspective and potential are important to us.

If we can do anything to help make the hiring process more accessible, please let our talent acquisition team know when you apply so we can support any adjustments.