Cloud Platform Engineer

About Serco Serco delivers services to governments and organisations that serve the public or protect vital national interests. As a FTSE 250 company, we manage over 500 contracts worldwide and employ more than 50,000 people across our global operations. Serco Europe operates in 10 countries, delivering specialised services across the Immigration, Space, Defence, and International Organisations sectors. We are looking for an experienced Cloud Platform Engineer to join our team on a 6-month freelance contract, supporting the design, implementation, and operation of modern cloud platform services. This is a fully remote position, and candidates must be based within the European Union. Key Responsibilities Implement and maintain Azure infrastructure as code across multiple environments. Build, operate, and maintain Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters, networking, and shared platform services. Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines and GitOps deployment workflows. Implement observability, monitoring, alerting, and operational automation. Support cost optimisation through autoscaling, right-sizing, and scale-to-zero strategies. Adopt an AI-first approach, leveraging agentic AI tools as the preferred method for designing, building, and delivering solutions. Work within an iterative, board-driven delivery model using Azure DevOps Boards or GitHub Projects, with peer code reviews as a standard practice. Produce and maintain architecture and technical documentation as part of the Definition of Done. Required Skills and Experience Strong hands-on experience in Azure cloud and platform engineering within large organisations. Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform or Bicep. Production experience operating Kubernetes and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) environments. Experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitOps practices using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions. Strong scripting and automation skills using languages such as Python, PowerShell, or Bash. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline. Good written and spoken English. EU nationality. Desirable Skills and Experience Experience operating cloud platforms that support AI or data-intensive workloads. Strong networking knowledge, including Azure Private Link and Virtual Network (VNet) peering. Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost optimisation tools.