{"id":1088525,"url":"https://alion.io/job/physicsx-senior-software-engineer-infrastructure-python-kubernetes","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure - Python & Kubernetes","company":{"id":251,"name":"PhysicsX","domain":"physicsx.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/physicsx","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":88,"open_postings":35,"ghost_share":0.114,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":98,"computed_at":"2026-11-06T05:58:05Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":171000,"max_usd":304000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":24},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Crossplane","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Istio","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Service Mesh","optional":false},{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"ArgoCD","optional":true},{"name":"Elixir","optional":true},{"name":"Erlang","optional":true},{"name":"External Secrets","optional":true},{"name":"GitOps","optional":true},{"name":"Go","optional":true},{"name":"OCaml","optional":true},{"name":"Octopus Deploy","optional":true},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-21T10:54:29Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-23","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T00:11:49Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":46,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":45},"description":"About us\nRe-architecting Engineering for the Age of Intelligence\n\nPhysicsX is the physics AI company for industrials. The company’s mission is to accelerate hardware innovation by overhauling what industrial engineering and manufacturing look like today. PhysicsX is building a new simulation software stack to deliver deep physics AI enablement across the entire engineering lifecycle. The company partners with leading organisations in aerospace & defence, automotive, semiconductors, materials, and energy & renewables, supporting them on some of their most critical and complex challenges. PhysicsX is headquartered in the United Kingdom, with offices in London, New York, and Singapore and an expanding presence in the Bay Area.\nStaff Software Engineer - SRE and Core Infra London (Hybrid) | Engineering | Full Time\nThe Role\nPhysicsX is growing rapidly and so is the infrastructure that underpins our platform. We are building core infrastructure that is reliable, secure, scalable and reproducible across multiple cloud providers and on premises environments. As the platform evolves to serve increasingly complex engineering workloads, the foundational infrastructure layer becomes ever more critical.\nWe are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Platform SRE Core Infrastructure team. This role is responsible for the design, provisioning and operation of the shared infrastructure that the entire PhysicsX platform depends on. You will work across infrastructure as code, Kubernetes cluster management, secrets management, GPU drivers, networking and multi tenancy architecture to ensure the platform is dependable, scalable and secure.\nThis is a role for an engineer who combines deep infrastructure expertise with a reliability engineering mindset and an appreciation for the developer experience of the teams that consume the platform.\nWhat You Will Do\nOwn the design and delivery of core infrastructure across multi cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and on premises environments using Terraform and Crossplane.\nArchitect and operate Kubernetes clusters supporting both single tenant and multi tenant workloads, with a strong emphasis on isolation, performance and reliability.\nDefine and implement infrastructure provisioning patterns using Crossplane compositions and Terraform modules, ensuring reproducibility and auditability across environments.\nDesign and operate secrets management solutions, including dynamic secret provisioning, rotation and fine grained access control integrated with cluster identity.\nManage and maintain GPU driver configurations and accelerated compute node pools, ensuring compatibility and performance for AI and simulation workloads.\nOwn cluster networking design including CNI selection, Istio service mesh integration, ingress strategy and cross cluster connectivity.\nImplement and maintain vCluster based multi tenancy to provide strong workload isolation within shared infrastructure.\nDevelop lightweight Kubernetes Operators or controllers where automation of infrastructure lifecycle tasks requires it.\nEstablish SLOs and reliability targets for core infrastructure components and lead the response to production incidents.\nPartner with security and platform teams to enforce infrastructure governance, network policies and compliance controls.\nContribute to and uphold engineering standards across the platform organisation.\nWhat You Bring to the Table\nKubernetes depth - 5 or more years of professional experience operating Kubernetes in production. You have a thorough understanding of cluster architecture, the scheduler, networking, storage and the API lifecycle. Kubernetes certifications such as CKAD, CKA or CKS are highly desirable.\nCrossplane expertise - significant hands on experience designing and operating Crossplane compositions, providers and managed resources in production environments.\nTerraform proficiency - strong experience authoring, structuring and operating Terraform at scale, including state management, module design and CI integration.\nMulti cloud and on premises - practical experience operating infrastructure across more than one cloud provider and on premises environments, with an understanding of the differences in identity, networking and storage.\nMulti tenancy architecture - experience designing and implementing both single tenant and multi tenant Kubernetes architectures, with strong views on isolation, resource governance and operational overhead.\nSecrets management - experience with tools such as Vault, External Secrets Operator or cloud native secret stores, including dynamic provisioning and rotation.\nNetworking - solid knowledge of Kubernetes networking, CNI plugins, Istio service mesh and ingress patterns. Experience with cross cluster or hybrid connectivity is valuable.\nvCluster and virtual clusters - experience using vCluster or similar tooling to provide lightweight, isolated Kubernetes environments within shared clusters.\nGPU and accelerated compute - familiarity with GPU driver management, device plugins and the operational considerations of running accelerated workloads in Kubernetes.\nKubernetes Operators - at least lightweight experience writing or extending Kubernetes Operators or controllers, ideally in Golang or Python.\nSoftware engineering capability - you are comfortable writing code to automate and extend infrastructure. Python and Golang are the primary languages used across the platform. Exposure to functional programming languages such as Erlang, Elixir or OCaml is appreciated.\nPlatform engineering mindset - you think about infrastructure as a product consumed by engineering teams and prioritise usability, documentation and long term maintainability.\nDistributed systems experience - a solid grounding in distributed systems concepts, including failure modes, consistency and the operational challenges of running systems at scale.\nIdeally\nExperience with GitOps workflows using tools such as Argo CD or Flux.\nContributions to open source infrastructure or Kubernetes ecosystem projects.\nWhat we offer\nBuild what actually matters\nHelp shape an AI-native engineering company at a formative stage, tackling problems that genuinely matter for industry and society. This is work with real-world impact - and something you can be proud to stand behind.\nLearn alongside exceptional people\nWork with a high-caliber, collaborative team of engineers, scientists, and operators who care deeply about doing great work, and about helping each other get better. We come from diverse backgrounds, but we share a commitment to operating at the highest level and addressing some of the most complex challenges out there. If you’re ambitious, thoughtful, and driven by impact, you’ll feel at home.\nInfluence over hierarchy\nWe operate with a flat structure: good ideas win - wherever they come from. Questioning assumptions and challenging the status quo isn’t just welcomed, it’s expected.\nSustainable pace, long-term ambition\nBuilding meaningful technology is a marathon, not a sprint. We believe in balancing focused, ambitious work with a life beyond it. Our hybrid model blends time together in our Shoreditch office with work-from-home days, giving you the flexibility to work sustainably while staying connected in person.\nAnd it doesn’t stop there …\n Equity options - share meaningfully in the company you’re helping to build.\n 10% employer pension contribution - because investing in future matters.\n Free office lunches - to keep you energised and focused.\n Enhanced parental leave - 3 months full pay paternity and 6 months full pay maternity leave, to provide extra flexibility during the moments that matter most.\n YellowNest nursery scheme - to help working parents manage childcare costs.\n 25 days of Annual Leave (+ Public Holidays) - because taking time to rest matters.\n Private medical insurance - 100% employee cover, giving you complete peace of mind.\n Wellhub Subscription - gain access to thousands of gyms, classes and wellness apps, supporting both physical and mental wellbeing.\n Eye tests - because good work depends on good health.\n Personal development - dedicated support for learning, development, and leveling up over time.\n Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) - confidential wellbeing support, available whenever you need it.\n Bike2Work scheme and Season ticket loan - to make getting to work easier and greener.\n Octopus EV salary sacrifice - for a simpler, more sustainable way to drive electric.\n Watch this space, we’re continuing to build this as we grow…\nWe value diversity and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. We strongly encourage individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech to apply.\nWe value diversity and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. We strongly encourage individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech to apply. To help make a change, we sponsor bright women from disadvantaged backgrounds through their university degrees in science and mathematics. \nWe collect diversity and inclusion data solely for the purpose of monitoring the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policies and ensuring compliance with employment and equality legislation. 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