Principal Platform Engineer

Company Description We are SGS – the world's leading testing, inspection and certification company. Today, that mission is driven by data and technology. With 99,500 employees across 2,500 locations, we have a unique opportunity to build world-class digital products. We are now launching a new Hub in Madrid to do just that. This is your opportunity to build the foundational platform that will power our entire engineering organization. Job Description We are building a new, product-focused engineering culture from the ground up, and we need a pioneer to build our racetrack. Your mission is to create a frictionless, automated platform that enables our teams to ship code multiple times a daywith the executive backing and autonomy to make it happen.As a Principal Platform Engineer, you are the master craftsman of our engineering environment. Your dual mission is to: 1) Build and run a lean, secure, and highly automated cloud platform (the "paved road") that makes it effortless for all engineers to build and ship. 2) Act as a lead, hands-on architect for our team's own flagship products, ensuring they are scalable, resilient, and built with practical, reusable patterns. What You'll Build and Own Build the Paved Road : Engineer core infrastructure from the ground up using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), Kubernetes, and a fully automated CI/CD pipeline. Your goal is to make the right way the easy way. Lead by Building : Act as the lead full-stack or backend engineer on our most critical projects, architecting through code and demonstrating best practices as you help deliver our first generation of data and AI products. Champion Reusability & Velocity : Identify, generalize, and build high-quality, reusable components and architectural patterns that emerge from our work and the work of other teams. Automate for Speed & Safety : Implement a practical DevSecOps culture by embedding automated security, testing, and observability directly into the development workflow. Be a Force Multiplier : Act as a key technical mentor and partner to other engineering teams, helping them leverage the platform and adopt best practices to increase their own velocity. QualificationsCloud & IaC : Expert-level, hands-on proficiency with a major cloud provider (GCP, AWS) and Terraform. You don't just use it; you architect with it. Containers & Orchestration : Mastery of Docker and deep, practical knowledge of Kubernetes for building and operating resilient applications. CI/CD & Automation : Extensive experience building high-velocity CI/CD pipelines from scratch (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) with a focus on speed and developer feedback. Software & Systems Design : Proven experience as a senior software engineer building distributed, cloud-native applications. Strong skills in a language like Go, Python, or TypeScript. Observability : A practical, hands-on approach to building an observability stack (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger) that provides actionable insights, not just dashboards. Who You Are You have extensive (e.g., 8+ years)experience and identify as a builder first, with a background in SRE, Platform Engineering, or senior Software Engineering. You are a pragmatist who hates bureaucracy and believes the best architecture is the simplest one that works. You measure your success by the velocity and autonomy of the engineers you support. You love getting your hands dirty and leading from the front. Additional InformationWhat We Offer Top-of-Market Compensation:A highly competitive salary and bonus package for Madrid, designed to attract and retain premier talent for this strategic role. A Clear Growth Path : This role offers a direct path to technical leadership and the opportunity to build and mentor a team around your architectural vision. A Compelling Mission:Build the platform that will run the AI and Data products that have a real-world impact on global safety, sustainability, and supply chains. Foundational Impact:You will be the first Principal Platform Engineer in our new Digital Hub, setting the standards for how a global leader builds and ships software. Greenfield Ownership & Autonomy : This is not about maintaining legacy systems. You have a mandate to build our entire cloud-native platform from scratch, backed by C-level sponsorship.#J-18808-Ljbffr