Senior OpenShift, OpenStack & Keycloak Engineers (NV1 Preferred) | Remote Australia | Contract, Temp to Perm

Kestrel Eight is an award-winning DevOps, Advanced Red Hat and IBM consulting firm.
We are building a remote-friendly delivery team for government and large enterprise platform programs, and you can be anywhere in Australia. Contracts run for 12 months from 1 December 2026, with extensions likely on several roles and a path to permanent employment with us. Other customer roles start on different dates.
The work
OpenShift Virtualisation: operate enterprise platforms, mentor client teams and move workloads off legacy virtualisation
OpenStack: sustain RHOSP 17 and 18 at scale and plan the shift toward OpenShift
OpenStack on OpenShift: deliver for telco and carrier-grade environments, from platform build to day 2 operations
Keycloak on OpenShift: design and run SSO, identity and access on container platforms
Automation and DevSecOps: Ansible, GitOps and CI/CD across all of the above
Also seeking people with the following
OpenShift AI and AI platform engineers: AI gateway, model pipelines, RAG and LLM workloads, GPU observability and policy-as-code guardrails (based in Adelaide, Brisbane or Melbourne, with arrangements to be confirmed)
Red Hat OpenShift administrators and architects
Kubernetes, GitOps and ArgoCD engineers
Ansible Automation Platform engineers
RHEL, Satellite and Linux platform engineers
Container security and DevSecOps specialists
What you get with Kestrel Eight
Remote for these roles, so you can build your week around the work
Regular check-ins with our senior architects, so you are never working alone
The full Red Hat certification program, free, plus training in IBM, Veeam and Microsoft
Above-average rates or salary, with a temp-to-perm path if you want it
Direct access to our CEO and founders
No agency chain. You deal with us directly, and we talk to you before your CV goes anywhere
What you bring
Five or more years in your specialty
Real production experience in OpenShift, OpenStack or Keycloak
NV1 or above is essential for the government roles and an advantage elsewhere (Australian citizens only for clearance)
Apply with your CV and tell us your specialty. Strong candidates will hear from a real person within 24 hours.
Screening questions: (1) Which areas do you specialise in? (2) Do you hold NV1 or above? Make this preferred, not a must. (3) Where are you based, and when could you start?

Work arrangement
Yes