Lead Platform Engineer

Founded in 2001, Resident Advisor (RA) is one of the world's longest-running music media brands and a cornerstone of the dance, electronic and DJ ecosystem. The site's audience of over 7 million monthly users is drawn in by a combination of news, editorial, club listings and ticketing, RA-branded events at venues and festivals worldwide, original films and a weekly mix series that has run for 20 years. 

Purpose of the role:

We're looking for a Lead Platform Engineer passionate about electronic music to join our Core Platform team. You'll lead a small, focused team helping scale our high-traffic infrastructure that handles massive spikes during on-sale events. Our tech stack includes Node.js/.NET microservices, PostgreSQL/MSSQL databases, ElasticSearch, Redis, and Kafka running on AWS EKS (Kubernetes), managed via Terraform with CI/CD pipelines and DataDog monitoring.

Your responsibilities include improving infrastructure performance and reliability, driving modernization and cost optimization, developing shared components (i.e. auth systems, GraphQL gateways), enhancing developer experience, maintaining E2E testing systems, and creating internal tooling. This is an opportunity to solve challenging scale problems while shaping the technical foundation that powers RA's products for the electronic music community.

Key responsibilities

• Managing and improving AWS infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code practices
• Database maintenance and query optimization
• Cloud cost optimization and resource efficiency
• Researching, planning, and leading the evolution of backend infrastructure, transitioning from reactive maintenance to a proactive, future-proof platform roadmap
• Providing functional and technical training to the broader development team, fostering a culture of shared knowledge and operational excellence
• Writing application code to support infrastructure tooling and shared platform services
• Leading, mentoring, and supporting a team of two site reliability engineers and one QA Engineer — including regular 1:1s, goal setting, and performance feedback
• Owning team capacity planning and workload prioritization, ensuring the right work gets done in the right order
• Collaborating with the QA Engineer to define and uphold quality standards, integrating QA practices into the wider development team's process
• Acting as a technical escalation point for your team and a key voice in broader platform and architecture decisions

Required Skills:

• Experience working with AWS
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized application deployment
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code technologies (Terraform preferred)
• Experience deploying and maintaining SQL-based databases (PostgreSQL or MS SQL Server)
• Experience writing production-level application code
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with git and version control workflows
• Strong documentation writing skills and commitment to knowledge sharing
• Proven experience leading or mentoring engineers in a formal or informal capacity
• Strong interpersonal skills with openness to giving and receiving feedback
• Fluent English communication skills (written and verbal)
• Experience with DataDog or similar for monitoring and alerting

Desired Skills:

• Experience with both PostgreSQL and MS SQL Server
• Advanced SQL query optimization skills
• Experience deploying and maintaining Kafka for event-driven architectures
• Experience deploying and maintaining ETL pipelines
• Deep understanding of Site Reliability Engineering principles and best practices
• Experience with backend languages such as C# and Node.js
• Experience with scripting languages (such as Bash, Python, PowerShell)
• Experience managing high-traffic systems with significant load variations
• Familiarity with QA methodologies and E2E testing frameworks, and an appreciation for how reliability and quality practices intersect

What we offer you:

• Generous annual leave policies aimed at promoting work-life balance.
• Flexibility in working arrangements, offering hybrid or remote work options based on role requirements and location. 
• Matching pension schemes and/or 401k.
• Comprehensive staff wellbeing initiatives, featuring regular activities and workplace programmes to support mental and physical health. This includes discounted Classpass memberships, and custom-fitted earplugs.
• Company-led social events, team lunches, and discounts on RA merch.
• Paid annual volunteering allowance, encouraging contributions to community projects and charities you care about.
• Regular company-wide Q&A’s with senior leadership, along with ongoing virtual educational training sessions for all staff.
• A transparent internal company culture committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (see: https://ra.co/about/diversity).
• Active involvement in community projects within the electronic music community (see:  https://ra.co/about/community).

More about RA:

As an independent company run by devoted dance music enthusiasts, our mission is to bring together the world's electronic music communities. Our Global Contributor Network (GCN) and international teams help us establish connections with hyper-niche local scenes. 

We became B-Corp certified in 2024, which counts us among businesses leading a global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy and part of a community that meets high social and environmental impact standards.

We especially welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds, abilities, ethnicities, experiences, gender identities, and sexual orientations. We aim for our team to reflect the communities we engage with. We ensure everyone is valued and respected by actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in our workplace.

Our values:

• Electronic music is art.
• We celebrate the progressive values that underpin electronic music.
• We advocate for a more inclusive and equitable electronic music community.
• We honour the past, present and future of electronic music.
• We use innovation to empower the community.
• We choose honesty over gain and purpose over profit.
• We're always front left.

This role is a full-time position, based in London. Please note: This position requires applicants to be based in London and to work from the office three days per week. The annual salary range for this role is £70,000 – £80,000. If you have questions about the role, please contact work@ra.co.

This listing will be open for two weeks from the 2nd March. Please be sure to add work@ra.co to your contacts and check your junk/spam folder for emails from us.