Research Specialist, Cloud Infrastructure CoE

Job description

Recruiter: Mark Thomas Hiring Manager: Paul Veitch Career Grade: D Closing date: 23/10/2026 About the role This role is based in BT's Cloud Infrastructure Centre of Excellence, you'll help research how the compute infrastructure behind our networks can evolve to maximise performance and resiliency, whilst supporting AI workloads alongside network functions in the most energy and cost efficient way. Our purpose is to unlock value for BT by driving performant, secure, resilient, power-efficient and AI-ready infrastructure, using cloud technologies and principles. We work on telco cloud: using servers and data centre infrastructure to run network capabilities that previously needed specialised equipment. This is a hands-on research role. You'll turn ideas into lab experiments and proofs of concept, exploring how hardware and software work together and what those findings could mean for BT. You'll join colleagues with complementary technical skills and connections across BT and beyond. The team offers a friendly foundation for developing your ideas and contributing to practical research at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, telecoms and AI. This role is based in Ipswich or Bristol and our hybrid working model means you are expected to be in the office 3 days per week. What you’ll be doing • Contribute to existing research projects, while also seeking out new ideas and approaches to cloud infrastructure challenges. • Carry out hands-on, lab-based evaluation and development, exploring new technologies and developing innovative approaches. • Form hypotheses, build proofs of concept and test whether proposed approaches work in practice, advancing their technical maturity. • Investigate how applications, services and AI workloads run on compute infrastructure, and how to improve performance and power efficiency. • Explore ways to make compute infrastructure more secure and resilient. • Assess the business benefits of your findings alongside the technical results. Essential Skills / Experience • Telco cloud: Knowledge of running telecoms workloads on compute-based infrastructure, including Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN), Kubernetes, containers and CI/CD. • Compute infrastructure: Understanding of data centre design and the hardware building blocks of compute, storage and networking, including how they fit together. • Linux: Practical Linux skills to support hands-on infrastructure evaluation and experimentation. • Networking fundamentals: Understanding of the networking principles underpinning cloud and telecoms infrastructure. You'll be comfortable taking responsibility for your work, trying new approaches and progressing experiments without needing detailed direction at every step, while staying aligned with the team's priorities. Desirable Skills / Experience • Software programming skills that complement your infrastructure knowledge. • Research experience, or experience in a cloud or networking role where you've developed and tested new ways of doing things. A PhD is not essential. • Awareness of how AI affects infrastructure requirements, including GPUs and accelerated compute. • Expert communicator: regularly presents to peers and managers about their research and area of technical expertise. • Experienced in open innovation: Skilled in patenting, technical publications, conference presentations etc. • Knowledge around secure computing including attestation, cyber -resilience, memory safety. • Strong skills in building the case for change, drawing on data and analytical techniques where appropriate, and communicating this to business audiences. Our Package Tailored benefits make a real difference. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range to support your growth, wellbeing, and everyday life. You can design the package to suit you and your lifestyle. Your core benefits include: 10% on target annual bonus Access to an online private GP 24/7 for you and your immediate family Market-leading paid carers leave with up to 2 weeks off Equalised maternity, paternity, and adoption leave – 18 weeks’ full pay and 8 weeks’ half pay Discounted EE and BT products, including mobile and broadband Market leading Pension scheme – 5% from you and 10% from us Holiday purchase scheme You can select additional benefits, including healthcare, dental, gym memberships and more when you’re ready. BT Group is the UK’s leading communications group and the holding company behind some of the country’s most recognised brands – including BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good. Our customers include consumers, small, medium and large businesses, public sector organisations and other communications providers. BT Group’s role is about setting direction, unlocking value and creating the conditions for our brands and businesses to thrive. Having come through the most capital-intensive phase of our fibre investment, our focus now is on what comes next – simplifying how we operate, using technology and AI to work smarter, and organising ourselves to serve customers better and grow sustainably. Group teams shape strategy, policy, brand, capital allocation and transformation, helping the whole organisation perform at its best. We have a singular culture that unites all our people: we are customer-first challengers, who are committed, clear and connected. These behaviours unite us as one team to deliver for our colleagues, our customers, our stakeholders and the country. Joining BT Group means working at the heart of a business that matters to the UK, with the opportunity to shape decisions, influence outcomes and help set the future course of one of the country’s most important companies.