Containers / Kubernetes (K8S) L3 Engineer

Containers / Kubernetes (K8S) L3 Engineer
Role purpose
Provide L3 operational ownership for enterprise container platforms and workloads, including Kubernetes platform lifecycle, CI/CD enablement, monitoring, logging, security, storage and production reliability across on-premises and cloud-integrated environments.
Key responsibilities
Operate Kubernetes clusters and supporting components across sandbox, development, integration, QA and production environments.
Administer cluster upgrades, node lifecycle, namespaces, RBAC, network policies, ingress, service load balancing, certificates, secrets and configuration objects.
Troubleshoot pods, scheduling, DNS, networking, storage, image-pull, performance, availability and application-deployment failures.
Operate and support container runtime, Helm/GitOps deployment patterns, image promotion, artifact registry and CI/CD pipeline integration.
Maintain observability using Prometheus and enterprise logging stacks; define alerts, dashboards, SLO indicators and actionable runbooks.
Support platform storage and networking technologies such as Rook-Ceph/NFS, Calico/Cilium, NGINX Ingress and MetalLB or equivalent.
Implement hardening, image scanning, patching, backup/recovery, compliance-as-code and secure credential integration with enterprise PAM.
Contribute to platform automation frameworks and migration from legacy Kubernetes/Docker stacks to supported Kubernetes/containerd architectures.
Own complex L3 incidents, problem investigations, root-cause analysis and permanent corrective actions for the assigned service.
Perform proactive health checks, capacity and performance reviews, trend analysis, vulnerability remediation and service improvement.
Plan and execute approved changes, releases, upgrades and minor enhancements using formal ITSM, change control and rollback procedures.
Maintain architecture-aligned configurations, SOPs, runbooks, knowledge articles, configuration records and audit evidence.
Coordinate with customer L4/architecture, cybersecurity, quality, application teams, service desk and third-party vendors while retaining operational ownership.
Mentor L1/L2 engineers, conduct knowledge transfer, improve shift-left resolution and support major-incident technical bridges.
Produce operational dashboards and reports covering availability, capacity, incidents, problems, changes, risks and improvement actions.
Required technical skills
Advanced Kubernetes administration and troubleshooting; certification such as CKA/CKS is strongly preferred.
Hands-on Linux/Red Hat, containerd/Docker, Helm, Git, GitLab, Jenkins/CloudBees or equivalent CI/CD tooling.
Strong knowledge of CNI, CSI, ingress, load balancing, service discovery, DNS, PKI/TLS, RBAC and secrets management.
Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch and enterprise monitoring/event-management integration.
Working knowledge of Ansible, Python/Shell scripting, GitOps, infrastructure-as-code and automated remediation.
Experience operating business-critical container platforms with formal change, release, DR and security controls.
Experience and qualifications
8+ years of relevant IT experience with current hands-on L3 ownership in a large enterprise managed-services environment.
Strong ITIL-based incident, problem, change, release and configuration-management experience.
Ability to troubleshoot end-to-end across platform, network, identity, security, integration and application layers.
Experience creating technical documentation, runbooks, RCA reports, implementation plans and operational governance material.
Clear customer-facing communication, technical leadership, stakeholder coordination and mentoring skills.
Experience working in regulated or highly controlled environments; awareness of GxP, audit trails, validation evidence, segregation of duties and data privacy is desirable.
Key deliverables and success measures
Stable service operations with timely restoration, high-quality RCA and reduction of repeat incidents.
Successful execution of approved changes and releases with complete implementation, validation and rollback evidence.
Current runbooks, configuration records, knowledge articles, support dashboards and audit-ready documentation.
Measurable automation, reliability, security, compliance and user-experience improvements within agreed BAU capacity.
Effective technical leadership, stakeholder communication, vendor coordination and capability uplift of L1/L2 teams.

Work arrangement
Yes