Ec2

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations.  We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations. In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track.  The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories.  We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply.  We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work. We are seeking an experienced and hands-on Lead Data Engineer to design, build and evolve secure, scalable data platforms for clients across the UK Public Sector and Utilities sectors. You will work closely with architects, engineers and client stakeholders to deliver modern cloud-based data solutions that support operational, analytical and AI-driven use cases. The role combines technical leadership with hands-on engineering, helping clients modernise their data estates while ensuring solutions are secure, reliable and scalable. Working across multiple projects, you will lead the development of batch and real-time data pipelines, support architectural decision-making, and help establish engineering best practices across delivery teams. Strong experience with real-time streaming technologies is essential. Key Responsibilities * Lead the design, development and deployment of secure, scalable data pipelines and data platform components. * Design and implement batch and real-time streaming solutions using modern event-driven architectures. * Own technical design decisions across projects, balancing scalability, security, performance and delivery requirements. * Lead technical workshops, discovery sessions and architecture discussions with client stakeholders. * Assess existing client data platforms and design practical approaches for modernisation, migration and integration. * Build and maintain data ingestion, transformation and integration capabilities across a variety of data sources. * Develop cloud-native data platforms using AWS services and open-source technologies. * Ensure data quality, governance, lineage and security requirements are embedded throughout the data lifecycle. * Drive engineering best practices including code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code. * Support multiple client engagements, helping delivery teams maintain consistent engineering quality and standards. * Mentor and support engineers across project teams, providing technical guidance and leadership. * Perform data modelling, performance tuning and root cause analysis to resolve complex data and platform issues. Essential Skills & Experience Real-Time Streaming & Data Engineering * Strong commercial experience designing and implementing real-time streaming data platforms. * Hands-on experience with technologies such as Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, Apache Pulsar, or similar event-driven technologies. * Experience building high-volume, low-latency, resilient data pipelines in production environments. * Strong understanding of modern data engineering patterns, including batch, streaming and hybrid architectures. Data Engineering & Databases * Extensive experience developing and operating enterprise-scale data platforms. * Strong SQL skills and experience designing data models for analytical and operational workloads. * Proficiency in Python or other modern programming languages used for data engineering. * Experience configuring, tuning and optimising relational and NoSQL databases. Cloud & Software Engineering * Strong experience working with AWS cloud services, including EC2, RDS, Lambda, Athena, Glue, S3 and IAM. * Experience working within Agile delivery environments. * Strong understanding of Test-Driven Development (TDD) and automated testing practices. * Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and engineering automation. * Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code principles. * Experience using version control systems such as Git. Regulated Environments * Experience delivering technology solutions within UK Public Sector, Utilities, Energy, Water, Financial Services or other highly regulated industries. * Understanding of security, governance and compliance considerations within regulated environments. Desirable Skills * Experience with Terraform. * Experience with Docker and Kubernetes. * Knowledge of Ansible and Packer. * Linux and Windows administration experience. * Experience supporting AI, machine learning or advanced analytics platforms. * Experience working on programmes requiring UK Government security clearance. What We're Looking For * Strong technical leadership and problem-solving skills. * Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. * Experience working in complex, regulated environments. * A collaborative approach and willingness to support and mentor others. * A focus on delivering practical solutions that create value for clients. * A passion for building reliable, scalable and secure data platforms. Education Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Mathematics or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience. Aker Systems Attributes At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more. Equal Opportunities Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.

SUMMARY OF THE ROLE: As a Security Research Engineer at Maze, you'll be at the forefront of defining what constitutes real security risk in the age of AI-powered vulnerability detection. This is a unique opportunity to join our growing security research team at a well-funded startup building at the intersection of generative AI and cybersecurity, where your security expertise directly shapes how our AI models understand and prioritize cloud security threats. You'll spend the majority of your time as the expert human-in-the-loop, analyzing cloud vulnerability findings from our AI systems, conducting deep research to validate and contextualize threats, and creating the authoritative labels that train our models to distinguish critical risks from noise. Working alongside other security researchers, you'll help scale our labeling operations while providing critical input into product development decisions based on real-world threat patterns you discover. This role is perfect for a security researcher who wants to pioneer the future of AI-assisted threat detection, loves diving deep into cloud security vulnerabilities, and wants to see their security insights amplified through cutting-edge technology while contributing to a growing team. YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR JOURNEY: * Scale Expert Data Labeling Operations: Lead high-volume vulnerability labeling and validation work as the authoritative voice on threat severity, reviewing and categorizing cloud security findings from our AI models to create the high-quality training data that powers our platform * Drive Product Development Through Research Insights: Translate patterns and insights from your labeling and research work into actionable product improvements, working directly with engineering and product teams to enhance detection capabilities and user experience * Collaborate with Security Research Team: Work closely with fellow Security Research Engineers to maintain consistency in labeling standards, share research findings, and collectively improve our vulnerability assessment methodologies * Deep Vulnerability Research: Conduct comprehensive research into cloud vulnerabilities affecting EC2 images, Docker containers, and cloud infrastructure, investigating true/false positives, analyzing business impact, and building proof-of-concepts to validate threat scenarios * Enhance AI Model Accuracy: Provide expert feedback through our labeling tools that improves our AI models' understanding of vulnerability context, helping them learn to prioritize threats like a seasoned security researcher * Technical Investigation and Analysis: Create detailed technical writeups about exploitation techniques, attack vectors, and remediation strategies for cloud vulnerabilities, turning complex security research into actionable intelligence * Leverage External Security Intelligence: Integrate insights from CVE databases, security advisory feeds, and threat intelligence sources to enrich vulnerability findings with broader context and emerging threat patterns * Contribute to Thought Leadership: Support our external presence through technical blog posts, security videos/podcasts, and occasional conference presentations, sharing insights from your research WHAT YOU NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL: * Security Research Expertise: 5+ years of hands-on security experience with proven vulnerability research background, comfortable investigating complex security issues and building proof-of-concepts to validate findings * Cloud Security Mastery: Deep knowledge of AWS security, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, container security, and cloud-native attack vectors, with hands-on experience securing cloud environments at scale * Technical Investigation Skills: Strong coding and scripting abilities (Python, Go, or similar) for automating research tasks, building validation tools, and creating proof-of-concept exploits * Analytical Excellence: Proven ability to analyze complex security data, distinguish between critical threats and false positives, and communicate technical findings to both technical and business audiences * Product Mindset: Experience translating security insights into product requirements, with ability to identify patterns across vulnerabilities that inform strategic product decisions * External Intelligence Integration: Experience working with vulnerability databases, security advisory feeds, and threat intelligence sources to contextualize and prioritize security findings * Collaborative Mindset: Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with security research peers, AI/ML teams, and product stakeholders, translating security domain knowledge into actionable improvements * High-Volume Execution: Comfort with systematic labeling work while maintaining accuracy and attention to detail, balancing speed with quality in fast-paced environments * Nice to haves: * Experience with AI/ML security or working with AI-generated security findings * Background at security tooling companies or building security products * Expertise in specific vulnerability research methodologies and frameworks * Open source contributions to security tools or research projects * Previous content creation experience in security (blogs, talks, research papers) * Industry certifications (CISSP, OSCP, AWS Security, etc.) WHY JOIN US: * Ambitious Challenge: We're using generative AI (LLMs and agents) to solve some of the most pressing challenges in cloud security today. You'll be defining how AI understands and prioritizes vulnerabilities, working at the cutting edge of AI-powered threat detection. * Expert Team: We are a team of hands-on leaders with experience in Big Tech and Scale-ups. Our team has been part of the leadership teams behind multiple acquisitions and an IPO. * Growing Security Research Function: Join a collaborative security research team where you'll work alongside other experts, share insights, and collectively shape how our AI platform understands security threats at scale. * Impactful Work: Your security research and labeling work will directly improve how thousands of organizations understand and respond to cloud security threats, scaling expert security knowledge through AI to protect the entire ecosystem. * Product Influence: Your day-to-day research insights will directly influence product strategy and development, giving you a voice in building the next generation of AI-powered security tools. * Pioneer AI-Native Security: Help establish the gold standard for AI-assisted vulnerability research, defining how human security expertise enhances machine learning models in the cybersecurity domain.