Manager, Infrastructure Engineering (Linux Platforms)

Why we need this role

The Manager, Infrastructure Engineering, Linux Platforms leads the team responsible for designing, deploying, automating and maintaining the secure Linux-based infrastructure that supports critical telecommunications network services. The platform scope includes DNS, routing control infrastructure, authentication and identity services, network observability, monitoring and related network-management capabilities.

The role combines people leadership, service ownership and technical governance. It is accountable for team capability, technology roadmaps, platform lifecycle, operational performance, security, resilience, automation and managed-service outcomes. The Manager works closely with Network Engineering, Security, Infrastructure, Architecture and Operations to ensure platforms are secure by design, operationally supportable and aligned with network strategy.

The successful candidate will manage a team of approximately four Linux specialists and managed-service resources located in India and the UK, supporting a distributed estate of hundreds of Linux systems that underpin critical telecommunications operations.

Platforms and Services

The team designs, deploys, automates and maintains Linux infrastructure supporting:

• Authoritative, recursive and caching DNS services.
• Route reflectors and other routing control-plane services.
• Authentication, authorisation and accounting services.
• Identity management, directory and privileged-access integrations.
• Network observability, telemetry, logging and monitoring platforms.
• Network-management and automation services.
• Virtualised and, where appropriate, containerised infrastructure.
• Supporting services such as NTP, PKI, certificate management, secure repositories and configuration services.

What you will do

Leadership and Team Management

• Lead, recruit, mentor and develop Linux engineers and managed-service resources, building sustainable capability and succession.
• Set clear accountabilities, priorities and objectives and foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Maintain sufficient technical depth to lead engineering decisions, challenge designs and support major incidents, while developing Senior Engineers as the primary technical authorities for assigned platforms and services.
• Allocate resources across operational, project and lifecycle demand and ensure effective knowledge sharing across UK and India locations.

Service Ownership, Strategy and Governance

• Own the strategy, roadmap and service lifecycle for Linux-based network infrastructure and associated services.
• Set platform standards, reference architectures, operating procedures and governance for technical exceptions.
• Own service performance, availability, capacity, continuity, recoverability and operational readiness outcomes.
• Manage platform currency, technical debt, upgrades, obsolescence and decommissioning plans.
• Prioritise investment and demand across Network Engineering, Security, Infrastructure, Architecture and Operations.
• Govern managed-service and supplier performance, including service quality, delivery commitments and improvement actions.

Engineering, Resilience and Operational Excellence

• Drive standardisation and automation using Ansible, scripting and infrastructure-as-code principles to reduce manual effort and operational risk.
• Ensure monitoring, logging, security controls, backup and support documentation are included as part of every platform build.
• Define measurable objectives for availability, capacity, recoverability, vulnerability remediation, lifecycle risk and automation coverage.
• Ensure critical services have tested backup, restoration, failover, continuity and disaster-recovery arrangements.
• Lead major-incident response, risk escalation and stakeholder communications when required.
• Ensure effective problem, change, capacity, availability and continuity management across the service portfolio.

Security, Compliance and Risk

• Own the platform security roadmap, control outcomes, risk posture and governance of security exceptions.
• Ensure secure-by-design practices, threat modelling and appropriate segregation of administrative access are applied.
• Oversee vulnerability remediation, privileged access, secrets, keys, certificates, centralised audit logging and software repository security.
• Ensure the team can support security incidents while preserving relevant operational and forensic evidence.
• Ensure compliance evidence is complete, repeatable and available for audit and regulatory review.

Collaboration and Documentation

• Partner with Network Engineering, Security, Infrastructure, Architecture, Operations and application teams to align platform priorities and dependencies.
• Ensure technical designs, service documentation, support models, runbooks and audit evidence are maintained throughout the lifecycle.
• Communicate technical risk, performance, investment needs and roadmap progress clearly to technical and senior leadership audiences.

Operational Support

• Participate in the Infrastructure Operations on-call rota and provide leadership for priority incidents.

What we are looking for

Required Skills and Experience

• Extensive experience leading or engineering enterprise Linux platforms such as RHEL and Ubuntu; CentOS or compatible distributions are beneficial.
• Proven people leadership, coaching, resource planning and cross-functional stakeholder management skills.
• Strong understanding of service ownership, platform lifecycle, operational governance and managed-service delivery.
• Strong Linux automation skills using Ansible, Bash or Python and infrastructure-as-code principles.
• Strong understanding of TCP/IP, IPv4/IPv6, DNS, routing principles and BGP.
• Knowledge of network segmentation, firewalls, load balancing, NTP, PKI, TLS, certificate lifecycle, authentication and identity services.
• Experience managing high availability, backup, restoration, continuity and disaster recovery.
• Strong knowledge of ISO 27001 and CIS benchmarks, including vulnerability, privileged-access and audit controls.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving and communication skills.

Desirable Skills and Knowledge

• Experience in adjacent technologies is beneficial but not required across all areas.
• Network observability and monitoring, including metrics, logs, telemetry, alerting and capacity management.
• Virtualisation platforms such as VMware and KVM.
• Container technologies such as Docker or Podman and awareness of Kubernetes.
• Enterprise storage technologies such as SAN and NAS.
• Oracle databases and Linux integration.
• Windows Server environments.
• On-premises and cloud environments, including Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Leadership and Behaviours

• Ownership and accountability: takes responsibility for service outcomes, team effectiveness and technical excellence.
• Leadership: influences and collaborates effectively across teams.
• Outcome-driven: focuses on measurable results aligned with business and network objectives.
• Strategic thinking: aligns technical decisions with network and business strategy.
• Problem-solving: develops solutions for current needs while supporting future scale and evolution.
• Communication: communicates clearly with technical, non-technical and senior leadership audiences.
• Collaboration: builds strong relationships across architecture, security, infrastructure, network engineering and operations.
• Adaptability: responds effectively to change and identifies continuous improvement opportunities.

Preferred Qualifications / Education and Experience

• Degree in Computer Science, Network Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
• Seven or more years of Linux or infrastructure engineering experience, including leadership responsibility.
• RHCE, LFCS, LFCE or relevant network/security certifications are beneficial.

Summary

• Management role accountable for people, services, platform strategy, lifecycle, security, resilience and operational performance of Linux-based infrastructure supporting critical telecommunications network services.