Lead Platform Engineer

London, United Kingdom

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Key information

Date live: 01/01/2026

Business Area: Markets Pre Trade

Area of Expertise: Technology

Contract: Permanent

Reference Code: JR-0000079535

It’s happening at Barclays.

Be a part of a place where challenges are measured in billions, qubits and nanoseconds. Build your career in an environment where we’re advancing machine learning, leveraging blockchains, and harnessing FinTech. Working in Barclays technology, you’ll reimagine possibilities: learning and innovating to solve the challenges ahead, delivering for millions of customers.
We are shaping the future of financial technology.
Why not join us and make it happen here?

Where will you be located?

Explore location

Key Requirements

Hands-On Technical Leadership: Deliver core platform components (Python services, orchestration, GPU clusters, inference gateways, model registries).
Technical Strategy & Direction: Define and evolve the technical roadmap for AI enablement—covering generative AI, LLMOps, model serving, and data pipelines.
Platform at Scale: Apply experience running large-scale distributed platforms with high reliability, cost efficiency, and security.
Gen AI Expertise: Understand unique challenges in Generative AI (e.g., latency, cost, safety, evaluation, fine-tuning) and design solutions accordingly.
Plugged into AI Developments: Stay current with emerging AI trends, foundation models, open-source tooling, and best practices; bring insights into platform evolution.
Governance & Risk Management:
- Embed secure-by-design principles, compliance controls, and auditability into platform architecture.
- Ensure adherence to data privacy, model governance, and AI safety standards.
- Partner with Risk, Compliance, and Cyber teams to mitigate operational and regulatory risks.
Build High-Quality Systems: Write clean, maintainable code; enforce best practices in CI/CD, testing, observability, and secure coding.
Mentorship & Talent Development: Coach engineers on advanced AI infrastructure patterns, performance tuning, and cloud-native design.
Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with front-office developers, internal platforms, and infra teams to align technical solutions with business needs.
Operational Excellence: Drive reliability (SLOs), cost optimization, and incident response for AI platform services.

Key Skills

Expert-level Python for backend and infrastructure tooling.
Deep AWS expertise (IAM, KMS, EKS, ECS, Lambda, Glue, Step Functions, MSK, Bedrock).
Proven experience running platforms at scale (high availability, cost optimization, observability).
Strong grasp of Generative AI challenges: inference optimization, model lifecycle, evaluation, safety guardrails.
Ability to lead by doing—hands-on coding, debugging, and performance tuning.
Awareness of AI/ML infrastructure trends and ability to integrate emerging technologies.
Strong sense of Governance and Risk Management for AI workloads.

Preferred Tech & Tools

LLMOps / AI Infra: LiteLLM, Mem0, MLflow, Langfuse for evaluation and tracing.
Data & Compute: Databricks, SageMaker for model training and deployment.
Observability & Monitoring: Observe, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus for platform telemetry.
Vector & Retrieval: FAISS, Weaviate, or equivalent for RAG pipelines.
GPU Orchestration: Kubernetes (EKS/on-prem), Ray, Slurm for distributed training/inference

Desirable Tech & Tools

Azure exposure and hybrid cloud strategies.
On-prem Kubernetes and GPU cluster experience.
Familiarity with quant workflows and financial data patterns.
Experience with fine-tuning and custom model deployment.

Purpose of the role

To design, develop and improve software, utilising various engineering methodologies, that provides business, platform, and technology capabilities for our customers and colleagues.

Accountabilities

Development and delivery of high-quality software solutions by using industry aligned programming languages, frameworks, and tools. Ensuring that code is scalable, maintainable, and optimized for performance.
Cross-functional collaboration with product managers, designers, and other engineers to define software requirements, devise solution strategies, and ensure seamless integration and alignment with business objectives.
Collaboration with peers, participate in code reviews, and promote a culture of code quality and knowledge sharing.
Stay informed of industry technology trends and innovations and actively contribute to the organization’s technology communities to foster a culture of technical excellence and growth.
Adherence to secure coding practices to mitigate vulnerabilities, protect sensitive data, and ensure secure software solutions.
Implementation of effective unit testing practices to ensure proper code design, readability, and reliability.

Director Expectations

Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Barclays welcomes applications from all candidates and is committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments (accommodations) are put in place to allow for a fair and inclusive recruitment process. For more information and how to request one, please review Adjustments to the recruitment process.

We’re a global, vital and highly respected financial organisation with an inspiring Purpose. Operating in 39 countries and employing around 100,000 people across the world, we help communities, individuals and businesses thrive. And we’ve created financial solutions and technology that the world now takes for granted. A career with us can offer incredible variety, depth and breadth of experience, and the chance to learn from some of the best minds in technology and finance.

To find out more about Barclays' strategy please click here.

We are an equal opportunity employer and opposed to discrimination on any grounds. It is the policy of Barclays to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by law.

Barclays is required by law to confirm that you have the Legal Right to Work in any role that you apply for. If you currently hold a work visa sponsored by Barclays, or you would require sponsorship from Barclays, you must declare this as part of your application. Sponsored visas are role and entity specific and any changes must be reviewed. It is important that you ensure you are working on the correct visa at all times. Failure to accurately disclose your visa status or Legal Right to Work may result in your application or any employment offer being withdrawn at any time.

Who succeeds in
Tech at Barclays?

For a career with us, you need to be prepared to take big steps forward, curious to face the challenges ahead, and driven to focus on the outcomes. We need people with the Barclays mindset to make it happen here.

What you'll get in return

Competitive holiday allowance

Life assurance

Private medical care

Pension contribution

Our technology

Supporting our 48 million customers and clients worldwide takes a lot of forward thinking. It means harnessing technology to support the economy. It means making a difference to people’s lives. And it requires the maintenance and development of a global, technological infrastructure. At Barclays, technology helps us keep transactions moving, manages data, and protects our customers. Join a world where your work creates unique moments of impact. Make it happen here.

This is Barclays London

Our global HQ is in Canary Wharf, at the heart of London’s financial district. There are over 10,000 colleagues here – a hugely diverse workforce made up of the world’s best financial and tech talent. If you love the buzz of city life, this is the place to be.

Cycle or run to work? We’ve got everything you need – from cycle hire and parking areas to new showering and changing facilities.

CoSpace is our drop-in co-working space, where networks are built, problems are solved collectively and our community is strengthened.

Our Wellness Suite includes a well-equipped gym and exercise studios, and provides personal training sessions and massage therapy.

Our new trading floors enhance communication, integrate sustainability, and support health and wellbeing through innovative design and British-sourced furniture.

This is Barclays London

Supporting active commuters

Cycle or run to work? We’ve got everything you need – from cycle hire and parking areas to new showering and changing facilities.

Time to connect

CoSpace is our drop-in co-working space, where networks are built, problems are solved collectively and our community is strengthened.

Wellbeing in focus

Our Wellness Suite includes a well-equipped gym and exercise studios, and provides personal training sessions and massage therapy.

Advanced trading floors

Our new trading floors enhance communication, integrate sustainability, and support health and wellbeing through innovative design and British-sourced furniture.

Working flexibly

We’re committed to providing a supportive and inclusive culture and environment for you to work in. This environment recognises and supports your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. If you'd like to explore flexible working arrangements, please discuss this with the hiring manager. Your request will be reviewed in-line with the requirements of the role/business needs of the team.

Hybrid working

We have a structured approach to hybrid working, where colleagues work at an onsite location on fixed, ‘anchor’, days, as set by the business area. Please discuss the working pattern requirements for the role you are applying for with the hiring manager. Please note that working arrangements may be subject to change on reasonable notice to ensure we meet the needs of our business.

Barclays is built on an international scale.

Our geographic reach, our wide variety of functions, businesses, roles and locations reflect the rich diversity of our worldwide customer base. All of which means we offer incredible variety, depth and breadth of experience. And the chance to learn from a globally diverse mix of colleagues, including some of the very best minds in banking, finance, technology and business. Throughout, we’ll encourage you to embrace mobility, exploring every part of our operations as you build your career.

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