Senior Engineer, Application Platforms

Location: Sheffield, UK hybrid 3 days in office

Rate: up to £700/day Umbrella

Length: Initially 6 months

The CTO Platform Engineering & Architecture (CTOp) organisation sits within the Chief Technology Office (CTO) and is responsible for building next-gen application and AI platforms that remove toil and reduce operational overhead through integrated controls and open-source solutions – making software delivery faster, safer, and more reliable every time. CTOp also sets architecture and engineering standards, builds core application, developer and AI platforms, and automates controls so teams can move code (or containers) to production quickly and consistently.

Purpose of the Job:

This role is a hands-on engineering + DevRel delivery position, focused on shipping practical adoption assets that scale. It supports the bank’s ambition that ~80% of workloads move to app.hsbc in the next 3–4 years by making adoption materially easier.

Responsible For:

1) Build adoption accelerators (Golden Path delivery)

● Implement and maintain Golden Path templates, reusable patterns, and reference implementations aligned to ways of working.

● Produce worked examples from real projects (not toy apps), designed to double as reusable accelerators and adoption “media”.

● Contribute code, pipelines, and automation that reduce friction in onboarding and repeatable delivery.

2) Self-service onboarding at scale

● Improve self-service onboarding journeys so teams can progress without 1:1 handholding (the org is too large; self-serve must work “from day 1”).

● Create and maintain onboarding guides, operational guidance, and runbook-style content that helps teams reach production confidently.

● Help reduce bespoke onboarding by standardising workflows and improving automation.

3) Developer experience advocacy (actionable, not advisory)

● Participate in feedback channels (office hours, champions networks, Teams/email/in‑app ratings where available).

4) Documentation as a core deliverable

● Write and maintain high-quality documentation content for our platform docs including onboarding, how‑tos, troubleshooting, and reference material.

● Ensure new/updated assets ship with documentation as part of “Definition of Done” and release readiness expectations.

● Keep content fresh and discoverable; propose improvements to doc structure, navigation, and “time to answer”.

5) Developer enablement and narrative support (delivery-focused)

● Support internal communications and technical engagement: short talks, show-and-tells, workshops, mob programming sessions.

● Help maintain clear adoption pathways and migration guidance (in partnership with product/engineering/architecture).

● Contribute to comms that make developers confident about what exists, what’s coming, and how to get value quickly.

Essential candidate requirements (experience, skills, competencies etc.):

• Proficiency in Java, Javascript or React JS

• Strong communicator to all levels of seniority

• Solid understanding of production readiness fundamentals (security, resilience, observability, supportability) sufficient to build credible examples and guidance.

• Strong hands-on engineering experience delivering production-grade systems. If experience delivering app platforms that would be a plus but not necessary

• Practical experience improving developer experience via standardisation, automation, and “make the easy thing the right thing”.

• Comfortable working across teams (product, engineering, architecture, risk/control) to make guidance accurate and usable.