Kubernetes Platform Specialist Lead Engineer

Job Title: Kubernetes Platform Specialist Lead Engineer
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Experience: 12+ Years
Employment Type: Contract
Interview Type: In-Person or Webcam

We are seeking an experienced Kubernetes Platform Specialist Lead Engineer who can design, build, and optimize Kubernetes-based container platforms for enterprise-scale applications. The ideal candidate will be responsible for leading platform engineering efforts, improving reliability, scalability, and automation, and ensuring best practices across cloud-native deployments. This role requires hands-on expertise with Kubernetes, DevOps tooling, CI/CD, container security, and modern infrastructure-as-code technologies.

• Lead the design, implementation, and management of Kubernetes clusters across cloud and hybrid environments.

• Build and maintain scalable, reliable, and secure Kubernetes platforms using best practices.

• Automate deployments, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

• Develop and improve CI/CD pipelines with tools such as Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps, or Argo CD.

• Implement monitoring, logging, alerts, and performance optimization for large-scale systems.

• Work closely with development, security, and cloud engineering teams to support platform enhancements.

• Manage cluster upgrades, patching, networking, storage, and troubleshooting.

• Ensure compliance, security hardening, and RBAC configurations for Kubernetes.

• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and documentation for engineering teams.

• Evaluate and integrate new cloud-native technologies as needed.

• 12+ years of total IT experience with at least 6+ years dedicated to Kubernetes engineering.

• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes cluster administration, Helm, Operators, and container orchestration.

• Expertise in Docker, container runtime management, and container build processes.

• Proficiency with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

• Strong knowledge of IaC tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Pulumi.

• Experience with networking concepts including load balancing, service mesh, and ingress controllers.

• Strong knowledge of DevOps tools and CI/CD automation pipelines.

• Experience with observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Splunk, or Datadog.

• Solid understanding of security practices including vulnerability scanning, image registry management, and secrets management.

• Strong scripting skills in Bash, Python, or Go.

• Excellent communication, problem-solving, and leadership skills.

• Kubernetes certifications such as CKA, CKAD, or CKS.

• Experience with GitOps methodologies and tools such as Argo CD or Flux.

• Experience building highly available and multi-cluster architectures.