Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Kubernetes Platform Engineer 1- Year Contract Remote $100/hour

We are only considering candidates in California Texas and Florida

Our client Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is seeking a Kubernetes Platform Engineer for a one year contract. This is a hands-on individual contributor role focused on operating and supporting on-prem Kubernetes platforms (k3s/RKE2) with a strong focus on Kubernetes networking (Cilium) platform reliability and production stability across mission-critical research systems.

Candidates must have hands-on experience with on-prem Kubernetes (k3s RKE2 or similar) and Kubernetes networking using Cilium or a similar CNI.

• Employment Type:W-2 only. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. No C2C or third-party arrangements.

• Contract Dates: May 27 2026 May 26 2027

• Location: Remote

• Hours: Full-time Monday through Friday

• Background Check: Clear criminal background check required

Responsibilities:

• Manage the full lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters including upgrades patching scaling and capacity planning across on-prem and cloud environments

• Administer and troubleshoot Kubernetes platforms using K3s RKE2 GKE and EKS

• Implement and maintain Cilium CNI and enforce secure network policies for multi-tenant environments

• Support and maintain Kubernetes networking using Cilium including troubleshooting connectivity DNS and service-level issues

• Troubleshoot complex cluster and networking issues including control plane failures node issues DNS and service connectivity

• Manage etcd health backups and disaster recovery processes

• Collaborate with datacenter and network teams on infrastructure changes and maintenance windows

• Support development teams by reviewing deployment manifests and assisting with workload troubleshooting

• Contribute to internal platform tooling documentation and runbooks

• Apply Kubernetes security best practices including RBAC Pod Security Standards and secrets management

Required Qualifications:

• 8 years of relevant experience

• Hands-on experience administering on-prem Kubernetes environments (K3s RKE2 or similar)

• Experience with Cilium CNI or equivalent container networking solutions

• Experience supporting cloud-managed Kubernetes environments (GKE and/or EKS)

• Strong Linux and networking fundamentals (routing DNS TCP/IP firewalls)

• Experience troubleshooting production Kubernetes environments

• Familiarity with GitOps workflows (ArgoCD Flux)

• Scripting and automation skills (Bash Python or Go)

• Experience working in collaborative production-focused environments

• Cloud experience with GCP and/or AWS

Preferred Qualifications:

• Go programming experience for platform tooling or operator development

• CKA or CKS certification

• Experience with BGP IPv6 networking or service mesh technologies

• Infrastructure as Code experience (Terraform or Ansible)

• Experience supporting internal developer platforms

• Strong familiarity with GitHub or GitLab workflows