Technology Scale-Up (Bristol)

Sourcing a Senior Platform Engineer to Accelerate Cloud Automation and Service Reliability

The Challenge

Our client, a fast-growing technology scale-up based in Bristol, was building out its platform engineering team. The business ran a SaaS product and needed someone who could improve automation and reliability at scale, not just maintain what was already there.

The role required a specific combination: strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, and CI/CD, alongside the maturity to work across teams and influence technical direction. That narrowed the pool considerably. Most engineers with that profile were already in roles and not looking. The South West market is competitive, and salary expectations had moved. The client needed an honest view of what the market looked like before committing to a number and going live.

A job advert was not going to reach the right people. They came to Xist4 for a more structured approach.

The Solution

Xist4 ran a retained search, starting with a review of the client’s hiring position before any outreach began. That gave both sides a clear, shared view of the market from the start.

• Worked with the VP of Engineering to define what the role actually needed to achieve, moving beyond the job description to agree on outcomes and what good looked like in the first 90 days.
• Mapped platform engineering talent across the South West and remote UK, covering salary expectations, hybrid preferences, and where competitor hiring was focused.
• Ran targeted outreach to engineers from SaaS, IoT, and data platform environments with relevant experience of scaling cloud-native infrastructure.
• Positioned the role around what senior engineers actually care about: real technical challenge, architectural influence, and flexibility on location.
• Assessed candidates on reliability engineering depth, how they approached complex problems, and whether they had the communication skills to work effectively across the business.

The Result

Within six and a half weeks, Xist4 delivered a focused shortlist of senior platform engineers with proven experience in scaling cloud-native environments.

The client hired someone who hit the ground running. System uptime improved by more than 20 per cent in the first quarter, and product delivery accelerated as the platform became more stable and easier to build on. That is what the hire was always meant to do. Getting there in under seven weeks, with a candidate who was not on the market, is where the approach made the difference.