Forward Deployed Engineer - Infrastructure

About the role

Thought Machine is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer – Infrastructure to act as the primary technical interface with clients, embedding within their engineering teams to design, build and deliver production‑ready implementations of Vault and related products. You will guide clients from presales through large‑scale cloud deployments, ensuring high‑availability, security and performance.

Key responsibilities

• Provide hands‑on cloud infrastructure consulting on‑site and remotely, designing suitable environments for Vault at scale.
• Deploy and configure Thought Machine Vault on client, SaaS and internal cloud platforms.
• Advise clients on optimisation, high‑availability, disaster recovery, backup, capacity and security.
• Support and troubleshoot client and internal cloud infrastructure, implementing monitoring, logging and alerting tools.
• Collaborate with internal product and engineering teams to feed client feedback into product improvements.
• Assist the commercial team and cloud‑provider partners with infrastructure queries during the presales cycle.

Required profile

• Ability to explain technical concepts to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Hands‑on experience with Linux/Unix administration, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, Istio, and automation tools such as Terraform, Puppet, Chef or Ansible.
• Practical experience with AWS or GCP cloud platforms.

Required skills

• Linux/Unix (Ubuntu, Debian)
• Kafka
• PostgreSQL
• Kubernetes & Istio
• Terraform, Puppet, Chef, Ansible
• AWS, GCP (certifications a plus)
• HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
• Hybrid cloud technologies (OpenShift, Anthos, EKS Anywhere, Outposts)
• Programming in Go, Python or Java
• CockroachDB, AlloyDB, Aurora
• Observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana)

What we offer

• Highly competitive salary and pension match up to 5%.
• Life insurance, generous maternity/paternity leave and shared parental leave.
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, flexible working hours.
• Cycle‑to‑work, electric‑car scheme, season‑ticket loan.
• Access to learning materials, sports clubs and weekly food pop‑ups.
• Inclusive culture supporting candidates of all abilities and backgrounds.