SRE Lead - Financial Services

One of our clients is looking to hire an experienced Site Reliability Engineering Lead to support a major financial services firm undergoing a significant technology and operating model transformation.

This is a high-impact role where you'll establish and shape an SRE function from the ground up, working directly with newly appointed leadership and global engineering teams.

The role

You'll join a client environment where SRE capability is still maturing, giving you the chance to define what 'good' looks like and implement best practices across a global engineering estate.

You'll operate at the intersection of engineering, operations, and reliability, embedding SRE principles alongside development teams and driving measurable improvements in system performance and resilience.

What you'll be doing?

• Lead the setup and evolution of an SRE function within a complex financial services environment
• Define and implement SLA/SLO/SLI frameworks, monitoring, alerting, and observability standards
• Establish post-incident review processes and drive a culture of continuous improvement
• Partner closely with engineering teams (50-100 globally) to embed SRE best practices
• Provide strategic advisory to senior stakeholders on reliability, tooling, and operating models
• Work alongside a small existing offshore SRE team to align delivery and standards
• Shape approaches to AI adoption within SRE/observability environments
• Support data-heavy platforms, including data ingestion and calculation pipelines

Technology Environment?

• AWS (core platform)
• Observability & Monitoring: Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus
• Event Management: BigPanda

What are they looking for?

• Proven experience leading or establishing SRE functions in enterprise environments
• Strong understanding of SRE principles, reliability engineering, and production systems
• Experience defining monitoring, alerting, and incident management frameworks
• Ability to operate as a hands-on leader and strategic advisor
• Background in financial services
• Familiarity with large-scale distributed systems and data pipelines
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills, particularly in transformation environments

This is a unique opportunity to build an SRE function from scratch in a high-visibility programme. You will influence global engineering practices across a large-scale platform and there is a strong likelihood of extension beyond initial 6 months. They also offer flexible working (2 days a week in their London office).

This is an Inside IR35 contract going through an Umbrella company. Please note the rate quoted is the Umbrella rate.