Head of Cloud Engineering (12m FTC)

Role Title: Head of Cloud Engineering (12m FTC)

Location: Remote, UK

About Brightsolid

Brightsolid is a leading provider of hybrid cloud and managed services, delivering secure, sovereign, AI-ready infrastructure platforms across the UK. Our next-generation cloud platform is built on an open, extensible architecture using Canonical’s OpenStack, enabling scalable, resilient, and multi-tenant cloud services for modern workloads including virtual machines, containers, bare metal and AI platforms.

Role Overview

The Head of Cloud Engineering is responsible for the end-to-end ownership of Brightsolid's technology platforms, spanning cloud infrastructure, network services, datacentre environments, and enterprise tooling.

This includes accountability not only for core infrastructure but also for critical enterprise platforms and SaaS services that underpin both internal operations and customer service delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Platform & Engineering Leadership

Own the architecture, engineering, and lifecycle of Brightsolid's cloud platforms and services.

Lead Cloud Engineering and Network teams ensuring delivery of high-quality, scalable, secure infrastructure

Drive engineering excellence through automation, standardisation, and modern operating models

Cloud Platform Ownership

Maintain full accountability for multi-tenant cloud platforms, both internal and customer-facing

Lead the transition from legacy environments to open-source platforms (Ubuntu, OpenStack, Kubernetes)

Ensure platforms meet defined SLAs, resilience, compliance, and security requirements

Network & Datacentre Infrastructure

Lead network engineering and datacentre strategy across all Brightsolid facilities

Ensure high-availability, resilient, and high-performance connectivity and infrastructure

Own disaster recovery, capacity planning, and infrastructure lifecycle management

Enterprise Tooling, SaaS & Platform Ownership

Own the strategy, architecture, and operation of all engineering and business-critical tooling across the group

Provide full lifecycle ownership of key enterprise platforms, including:

ITSM and Service Management platforms (e.g. ServiceNow or equivalent)

CRM and customer engagement platforms (e.g. Salesforce or equivalent)

Monitoring, observability, and alerting platforms

Automation, CI/CD, and DevOps tooling

Identity, access management, and security tooling

Take accountability for the selection, integration, optimisation, and governance of SaaS, PaaS, and third-party services, ensuring:

Strong integration with core platform architecture

High availability, performance, and user experience

Compliance with security and data sovereignty requirements

Clear ownership, cost control, and lifecycle management

Define and enforce standards for tooling rationalisation, reducing duplication and driving platform consistency across the organisation

Lead the transition from fragmented tools towards a cohesive, platform-led operating model, where tooling is:

API-driven

Automated-first

Integrated into engineering workflows and service delivery

Partner with Product, Operations, Security, and Commercial teams to ensure tooling aligns with service delivery, customer experience, and revenue outcomes

Open-Source & Platform Transformation

Drive the adoption of open-source ecosystems, with a focus on Canonical, Ubuntu, OpenStack, and cloud-native tooling

Reduce dependency on proprietary platforms (e.g. VMware) in favour of sovereign alternatives

Deliver platforms that are AI-ready, scalable, and aligned to modern workload demands

Vendor & Partner Management

Own strategic vendor relationships across:

Cloud and infrastructure platforms

SaaS/PaaS providers

Hardware and datacentre vendors

Ensure alignment between vendor strategy and Brightsolid's open-source and sovereign platform direction

Manage commercial performance, cost optimisation, and innovation from partners

Collaboration & Customer Engagement

Work cross-functionally with Product, Sales, and Customer Success teams to support solution development and delivery

Support pre-sales engagements, technical strategy discussions, and complex customer solutions

Leadership & Culture

Build and lead high-performing Cloud Engineering and Network teams

Define and manage KPIs across platform availability, performance, cost, and customer outcomes

Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement