Infrastructure Lead Engineer - E4

We are seeking an experienced Infrastructure Lead Engineer to provide technical leadership across the Payment Cards Value Stream core infrastructure platforms and services. This is a senior engineering role for someone who combines deep hands-on expertise with strong leadership, ownership, and strategic thinking. You will play a critical role in shaping, operating, and continuously improving the infrastructure that underpins our business‑critical systems.

As an Infrastructure Lead Engineer, you will be accountable for the design, resilience, security, and performance of our on-premises infrastructure estate. You will set technical direction, define standards and guardrails, and ensure infrastructure is built and operated to meet availability, scalability, security, and regulatory requirements. This includes ownership of platform architecture, environment strategy, automation, monitoring, and disaster recovery capabilities.

A key part of the role is technical leadership. You will lead and mentor engineers, setting a high bar for engineering quality, operational excellence, and continuous improvement. You will work closely with delivery teams to embed infrastructure best practice into solution design, and ensure infrastructure changes are reviewed, tested, and deployed safely. You will also act as a senior escalation point for complex incidents, leading root cause analysis, and driving preventative actions to strengthen platform stability.

You will collaborate extensively with architecture, security, development, operations, and third‑party suppliers, ensuring infrastructure aligns with wider technology strategy and business priorities. This includes contributing to roadmaps, capacity planning, and investment decisions, and providing clear, credible technical input to senior stakeholders. You will be comfortable balancing short‑term delivery pressures with long‑term sustainability and risk management.

Operational excellence is central to the role. You will oversee vulnerability management, patching, lifecycle management, and compliance activities, ensuring platforms remain supported, secure, and cost‑effective. You will champion automation and Infrastructure‑as‑Code approaches to reduce manual effort, improve consistency, and increase confidence in change.

This role is ideal for a senior infrastructure engineer ready to lead at scale, someone motivated by ownership, problem-solving and growing others, and who thrives in complex, regulated, or mission‑critical environments. You will have the opportunity to influence how infrastructure is designed and run, and to make a lasting impact on the reliability and resilience of our technology platforms.
At Nationwide, we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK-wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.

For this job, you'll be located at our nearest regional hub. There will be a need to regularly connect with colleagues for collaboration events in one of our office sites. This is anticipated to be monthly in Swindon or London. If your application is successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this works. 

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

What you’ll be doing

You will lead teams delivering infrastructure, network, and environment changes, while also planning and managing the day‑to‑day activities required to keep existing systems and platforms operating reliably. 

Working closely with engineers and partner teams, you will review designs, resolve issues, and ensure all changes are thoroughly assessed and safely implemented. You will take end‑to‑end accountability for engineering delivery across workstreams, projects, and initiatives, leading from early concept and requirements through estimation, resourcing, build, testing, and release into live service. 

You will be responsible for meeting regulatory obligations and ensuring solutions consistently comply with governance, security policies, and technical standards. 

As a lead engineer, you will shape, maintain, and continuously improve technical standards and ways of working, using clear communication and well‑structured engineering documentation to promote consistency, quality, and learning across the teams.

About you

You are an experienced Infrastructure Lead Engineer with a technical background and proven leadership capability. To succeed in this role, you will bring the following essential skills and experience:

• Proven senior leadership and management experience, with a track record of leading, developing, and motivating high‑performing teams
• Demonstrable hands-on experience supporting and operating Linux and Wintel platforms, with experience building, maintaining, and troubleshooting infrastructure across server and operating system layers
• Working knowledge of Base24 on HPE NonStop (HPNS) in a production environment, including incident support and planned changes
• Solid understanding of networking principles, including connectivity, routing, firewalls, and environment integration for critical systems
• Proven experience in line management, including setting objectives, managing performance, mentoring, and supporting the development and wellbeing of engineers
• Significant people and workload management experience with the ability to plan, estimate, prioritise and manage tasks and delivery, breaking down complex work into achievable plans and tracking progress to completion
• Experience producing clear impact assessments for infrastructure changes, identifying risks, dependencies, and mitigation actions ahead of delivery
• A track record of raising technical standards, building sustainable capability within the team and employing a mindset of continuous improvements
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage credibly at senior level, translate complex technical concepts for non‑technical audiences, and managing key stakeholders and third-party suppliers

Our customer first behaviours put customers and members at the heart of how we work together. They are the set of behaviours that every colleague needs to display, in every role:

• Feel what customers feel - We step into our customers’ shoes, using their feedback and insights to empathise with them and to understand their needs, so that every decision we make starts and finishes with our customers in mind

• Say it straight - We are brave in speaking out and saying what we think – we’re honest and direct with good intent, openly sharing diverse perspectives to reach the best conclusions and using language everyone can understand

• Push for better - We don’t settle for mediocrity, we challenge the status quo, taking responsibility for continuous improvement and personal development

• Get it done - We prioritise what will have the greatest impact, we are decisive, and we take accountability for delivering brilliant customer outcomes

You can strengthen your application by showing how our customer first behaviours resonate with you, and where you may have already demonstrated these.

The extras you’ll get

There are all sorts of employee benefits available at Nationwide, including:

• 30 days holiday, pro rata

• Access to private medical insurance

• A highly competitive pension to help you build a strong foundation for retirement

• Access to an annual performance-related bonus

• Training and development to help you progress your career

• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme

• Life assurance to provide peace of mind for you and your loved ones in the event of your death

• Wellhub – access to a range of free and paid options for health and wellness

• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year

Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society

We forge our own path at Nationwide.

As a mutual, we’re owned by our members - those customers who bank, save or have a mortgage with us. We challenge the financial sector status quo. We don’t see customers as the engine of our own profit. We share our profits with them and put their needs first. Always there when they need us. Supporting them and their lives.

If you’re inspired by fairer finances, passionate about making a meaningful impact, and truly care about our customers, you’re one of us.

At Nationwide, you are challenged to grow and rewarded for doing so. Valued. Recognised. Inspired to be your best. As a community, we want our working lives to count. As a team, we celebrate what we achieve. As a standard-setter, we work for the good of customers, communities, and broader society.

We are purpose-driven. Uncompromisingly customer. Unstoppably Nationwide.

What to do next

If this role is for you, please click the ‘Apply Now’ button. You’ll need to attach your up-to-date CV and answer a few quick questions for us. 

We respond to everyone, so we will be in contact shortly after the closing date to let you know the outcome of your application.