Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer / Kubernetes Platform Architect

Position Title : Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer / Kubernetes Platform Architect
Location : Milpitas, CA (Remote)
Rate :$60/hour on W2
Visa : USC/GC
Job Description - Kubernetes Platform Engineer / Architect
Experience Required: 10-15+ Years Overall IT Experience with 5+ Years of Hands-on Kubernetes Platform Engineering
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Position Overview
Seeking an experienced Kubernetes Platform Engineer / Architect to design, build, automate, and support enterprise-grade container platforms that power business-critical applications across global environments. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in Kubernetes, container orchestration, cloud-native technologies, platform engineering, automation, observability, and DevOps practices.
This role will be responsible for developing a scalable, secure, and highly available Kubernetes ecosystem that enables application teams to rapidly deploy, manage, and modernize workloads. The candidate will work closely with cloud teams, infrastructure teams, application development teams, security teams, and SRE teams to deliver a robust cloud-native platform.
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Key Responsibilities
Kubernetes Platform Architecture
Design and implement enterprise Kubernetes platforms across cloud and hybrid environments.
Define platform standards, governance controls, and architectural best practices.
Build scalable, resilient, and highly available Kubernetes clusters.
Develop container platform roadmaps aligned with cloud strategy.
Establish multi-cluster and multi-region Kubernetes architectures.
Support application modernization and cloud-native transformation initiatives.
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Kubernetes Administration & Operations
Deploy, upgrade, patch, and manage Kubernetes clusters.
Perform cluster lifecycle management and capacity planning.
Optimize cluster performance, resource utilization, and availability.
Configure namespaces, RBAC, network policies, storage classes, and quota management.
Troubleshoot complex platform, networking, storage, and container issues.
Ensure platform reliability and operational excellence.
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Containerization & Cloud-Native Solutions
Design and implement containerized application environments.
Support Docker and OCI-compliant container technologies.
Develop best practices for:
Container security
Container lifecycle management
Image management
Registry management
Enable microservices architecture adoption.
Support modern cloud-native application deployments.
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Platform Automation
Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps practices.
Automate Kubernetes provisioning and configuration management.
Develop reusable deployment templates and platform services.
Build self-service capabilities for development teams.
Automate platform monitoring, compliance, and operational processes.
Tools
Terraform
Ansible
Helm
ArgoCD
FluxCD
GitHub Actions
Azure DevOps
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DevOps & CI/CD Enablement
Design and support CI/CD pipelines for Kubernetes workloads.
Integrate Kubernetes with enterprise DevOps toolchains.
Support continuous deployment and release automation.
Improve deployment speed, reliability, and application availability.
Establish standardized deployment frameworks.
Platforms
Azure DevOps
GitHub Enterprise
Jenkins
GitLab CI/CD
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Kubernetes Security
Implement Kubernetes security best practices and governance controls.
Configure and manage:
RBAC
Pod Security Standards
Network Policies
Secrets Management
Service Mesh Security
Integrate security scanning into CI/CD pipelines.
Support Zero Trust architecture initiatives.
Conduct platform security assessments and remediation activities.
Security Technologies
HashiCorp Vault
Aqua Security
Prisma Cloud
Microsoft Defender for Containers
Trivy
Falco
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Service Mesh & Traffic Management
Design and support service mesh implementations.
Configure traffic routing, ingress controllers, and API gateways.
Implement secure service-to-service communication.
Enable application observability and resilience patterns.
Technologies
Istio
Linkerd
NGINX Ingress
Kong
Ambassador
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Monitoring & Observability
Build enterprise observability solutions for Kubernetes platforms.
Implement centralized logging, monitoring, and alerting.
Define SLOs, SLIs, and platform health metrics.
Support Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices.
Monitoring Tools
Prometheus
Grafana
ELK Stack
OpenTelemetry
Datadog
Splunk
Dynatrace
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Cloud Platform Integration
Integrate Kubernetes with public cloud platforms.
Design and manage managed Kubernetes services.
Cloud Platforms
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Amazon EKS
Google GKE
Preferred Expertise In AKS Due To Azure Cloud Strategy.
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Leadership & Collaboration
Serve as the Kubernetes subject matter expert.
Provide technical leadership and architecture guidance.
Mentor platform engineers and DevOps teams.
Collaborate with application development, cloud, and security teams.
Participate in architecture reviews and technology governance forums.
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Experience
10-15+ years of overall IT experience.
5+ years of hands-on Kubernetes administration and platform engineering.
Experience managing large-scale production Kubernetes environments.
Experience implementing enterprise platform engineering practices.
Strong experience supporting mission-critical applications.
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Required Technical Skills
Kubernetes Ecosystem
Kubernetes (K8s)
Docker
Helm
Kustomize
CRDs
Operators
Kubernetes Networking
Kubernetes Security
Service Mesh
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Cloud Platforms
Microsoft Azure
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
AWS EKS
Google GKE
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Infrastructure Automation
Terraform
Ansible
PowerShell
Python
Bash
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GitOps & CI/CD
ArgoCD
FluxCD
Azure DevOps
GitHub Actions
Jenkins
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Monitoring & Logging
Prometheus
Grafana
OpenTelemetry
ELK Stack
Splunk
Dynatrace
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Networking
TCP/IP
DNS
Ingress Controllers
Service Mesh
Load Balancers
Network Policies
API Gateways
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Preferred Qualifications
Experience in semiconductor manufacturing or high-tech enterprise environments.
Experience supporting engineering and R&D workloads.
Experience with AI/ML platform deployments on Kubernetes.
Experience implementing platform engineering and Internal Developer Platforms (IDP).
Familiarity with OpenShift and Rancher environments.
Experience with GPU-based Kubernetes workloads.
Knowledge of FinOps and Kubernetes cost optimization.
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Required
Preferred Certifications
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
Preferred
Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator (AZ-104)
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)
Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)
HashiCorp Terraform Associate

Skills
Kubernetes

Experience
10-15 yrs

Work arrangement
Yes