Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Who are we?

Smarkets: Predicting the Future of Betting

Smarkets runs one of the world’s most sophisticated prediction markets, handling over £29 billion in volume since 2010 and engaging 200,000+ traders globally. We’re a technology company that happens to revolutionise betting - from sports to political markets, to delivering the sharpest prices and the fairest odds.

Our stack is designed for scale, reliability, and speed: Linux, Kafka, Postgres, Kubernetes, with Python 3, C++17, and React powering our platform. We build infrastructure that institutions trust while keeping trading accessible to everyone. Our edge? We’ve thrived through every market cycle, competitor, and industry revolution.

At the heart of our success are our people. We create a high-performance environment where exceptional talent can thrive, blending deep business experience with a commercial mindset to drive strategic growth.

If you’re ready to help shape the future of prediction markets with cutting-edge technology and a customer-first philosophy, Smarkets is where you belong.

Now, we’re looking for a Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer to help scale our infrastructure and empower our developers with streamlined, self-service tooling and operational excellence.

About the Role

You’ll join the Cloud Infrastructure Team, responsible for real-time distributed systems that power our trading engine—As a pivotal team member, you’ll craft and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud-based systems—while building the platforms that empower our developers to move fast, deploy confidently, and scale effortlessly.

You won’t just be building cloud infrastructure—you’ll be crafting a highly autonomous environment where ownership is expected, experimentation is encouraged, and innovation is embedded into everything we do. You'll shape the foundation of our cloud-native stack, blending visionary infrastructure architecture with the practical realities of a high-growth, high-scale environment.

This is a role where infrastructure meets engineering productivity: part DevOps, part Platform, 100% mission-critical.

What You'll Do

• Design and Own Infrastructure: Architect and maintain robust, cost-effective, and secure infrastructure on AWS using Terraform, Kubernetes, and cloud-native best practices.

• Champion Platform Engineering: Build and evolve the internal developer platform (IDP) that empowers engineers to self-serve infrastructure, CI/CD, observability, and security tooling.

• Debug Production Systems: Triage issues across layers of the stack—Kubernetes, cloud services, networking, applications, data pipelines—and drive root cause analysis and resolution.

• Drive DevOps Practices: Implement infrastructure as code (IaC), observability, alerting, and environment provisioning to support engineering teams and production systems.

• Promote Engineering Excellence: Establish and uphold standards and best practices across infrastructure, operations, and software delivery.

• Scale Microservices Architecture: Lead the buildout of resilient Kubernetes-based microservices across environments, optimizing for cost, performance, and security.

• Own Security & Compliance: Take point on security posture and audits (SOC 2, ISO 27001), ensuring our platforms meet rigorous compliance and operational standards.

• System Reliability: Optimize performance and availability for high-throughput, low-latency services that power the betting exchange.

• Be a Force Multiplier: Mentor other engineers, drive cross-team alignment, and lead initiatives with broad technical and business impact.

Your Toolkit

• Cloud & Infrastructure: Deep experience with AWS (EKS, VPC, EC2, S3, IAM, RDS), Terraform (IaC), and Linux systems.

• Containers & Orchestration: Kubernetes expertise, including Helm, ingress configuration, scaling strategies, and security hardening.

• Scripting & Automation: Strong skills in Python and Bash; automation is your second nature.

• Networking & Security: Proficiency in VPNs, VPC peering, DNS, TLS, and identity management (OIDC/SAML).

• Observability & Operations: Experience with Grafana, Prometheus, ELK stack, Sentry, and building robust monitoring/alerting pipelines.

• Developer Platform Tools: Hands-on with GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Backstage, or similar IDP tooling to build cohesive internal platforms.

• Data Infrastructure: Experience supporting PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, and object storage like S3 in production environments.

• Process & Compliance: Familiarity with security frameworks, incident response, RBAC/least privilege models, and compliance workflows.

Bonus if you have

• Experience with platform engineering concepts like golden paths, self-service portals, or PaaS-style abstractions.

• Built or contributed to developer enablement or SRE tooling platforms.

• Prior experience scaling platform infrastructure in a fast-growing startup environment.

What You Bring

• 6+ years in cloud infrastructure, DevOps, or platform engineering roles.

• Proven ability to balance long-term vision with short-term execution.

• A collaborative spirit that uplifts others and fosters strong technical culture.

• Passion for reliability, scalability, and simplicity in infrastructure.

Our Values

Our values are at the heart of everything we do - guiding how we work, collaborate, and innovate. They reflect what we expect of ourselves and each other to deliver the best results, while fostering a positive, high-performing environment:

• Push to Win: We set ambitious goals and relentlessly pursue them, always striving for excellence.

• Make Others Better: We lift each other up, share knowledge, and celebrate team success over individual achievement.

• Give a Shit: We care deeply about our work, our users, and the impact we make.

• Be a Pro: We take ownership, act with integrity, and consistently deliver to a high standard.

• Bring the Energy: We bring positivity, curiosity, and enthusiasm to everything we do, inspiring those around us.

Culture Fit: These values define how we succeed as a team. If this isn’t you, this may not be the right place. We hire people who thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative, and ambitious environment.

Perks & Benefits

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, alongside a dynamic, collaborative environment where your work truly makes an impact and your voice is heard. Our team is diverse, driven, and ambitious - united by a strong work ethic and a hunger to innovate and win.

Our benefits are designed around Health, Wealth, and Development, supporting you both professionally and personally.

These include:

• Stock Options: Vest over 4 years, your success is our success.

• Pension Scheme: Competitive plan via Aviva, with up to 6% matched contributions if you opt in.

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive coverage to keep you and your family healthy.

• Enhanced Parental Leave: Enhanced maternity and paternity leave to support you through life’s most important moments.

• Stay Fuelled: Enjoy fresh, chef-made breakfast and lunch every day, plus a constant supply of fruit, snacks, tea, coffee and soft drinks, because great work starts with great food.

• Cycle-to-Work Scheme: Support for sustainable commuting and staying active.

• Learning & Development: £1,000 annual education budget for courses, conferences, books, or training.

• Holiday: 25 days paid leave + bank holidays, with the option to carry over 5 days.

• Flexible Working: Hybrid model with 3 days in the office and 2 days from home to fit your lifestyle.

• Global Working: Work from anywhere in the world for up to 20 days a year.

• Team Energy: Regular socials, hackathons, and events — because collaboration and fun go hand-in-hand.

Please note: During your 3-month probation period, you will be required to work from the office 5 days a week.

What happens next​

We aim to have a simple and speedy hiring process and we want to make sure that we are right for you as much as the other way around.

• CV application review - We will review it as quickly as possible

• Let’s chat - Quick chat with our team about your experience and the role

• Technical Interview - Live Technical Interview + System Design Interview

• In Office Interview - Experience & Mindset + Lunch with other colleagues in the team + LT Chat

Diversity & Inclusion

We’re an equal opportunities employer and celebrate diversity in all its forms. If you need any adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know — we’re happy to accommodate your needs.