Principal Cloud Kubernetes Engineer

We are seeking aPrincipal Cloud Kubernetes Engineerto join our global infrastructure team to lead the architecture strategy and evolution of our cloud-native platform across public cloud and on-premises environments. This role serves as the organizations technical authority for Kubernetes platform engineering automation and cloud infrastructure driving platform scalability reliability security and developer experience.

The Principal Engineer will work across infrastructure application development security and operations teams to establish standards guide architecture decisions and deliver highly automated self-service platforms supporting mission-critical workloads.

Key Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Strategy

• Define and maintain the Kubernetes platform roadmap and cloud-native strategy.
• Architect multi-cluster multi-region and multi-cloud Kubernetes platforms supporting enterprise-scale workloads.
• Establish platform engineering standards reference architectures and operational best practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and provide technical guidance on platform modernization initiatives.
• Lead technical decision-making for container orchestration platform automation and cloud infrastructure investments.

Kubernetes Platform Engineering

• Design deploy and operate enterprise Kubernetes platforms using EKS AKS GKE Rancher Spectro Cloud Palette or equivalent technologies.
• Define cluster lifecycle management processes including provisioning upgrades patching and decommissioning.
• Architect multi-tenant Kubernetes environments with strong isolation governance and compliance controls.
• Design Kubernetes networking architectures leveraging Cilium Calico service mesh technologies and eBPF-based observability.
• Establish cluster security baselines and platform governance standards.

Infrastructure Automation & Platform as Code

• Lead adoption of Infrastructure as Code and GitOps methodologies across engineering teams.
• Develop reusable Terraform modules Helm charts and platform automation frameworks.
• Design self-service provisioning capabilities for Kubernetes clusters environments and application onboarding.
• Implement Kubernetes Operators controllers and automation frameworks to eliminate operational toil.
• Define platform engineering patterns enabling rapid and consistent infrastructure delivery.

Cloud Infrastructure & Hybrid Operations

• Architect Kubernetes solutions spanning AWS Azure GCP and on-premises environments.
• Design resilient multi-region and disaster recovery architectures.
• Lead cloud infrastructure modernization initiatives and workload migrations.
• Define backup recovery business continuity and platform resiliency strategies.
• Establish storage architectures using Portworx CSI drivers OpenEBS or cloud-native storage services.

Reliability Engineering & Observability

• Define enterprise observability standards and platform reliability objectives.
• Establish SLIs SLOs and error budgets for critical platform services.
• Architect monitoring logging tracing and alerting solutions using Prometheus Grafana OpenTelemetry Loki and related technologies.
• Lead root cause analysis efforts for major incidents and drive systemic improvements.
• Develop resiliency testing chaos engineering and disaster recovery validation programs.

Security & Compliance

• Establish Kubernetes security architecture and cloud security standards.
• Lead implementation of policy-as-code frameworks using Kyverno OPA/Gatekeeper and admission controllers.
• Define workload identity secrets management and zero-trust platform strategies.
• Partner with security teams to satisfy regulatory audit and compliance requirements.
• Drive secure software supply chain initiatives including image signing SBOM validation and runtime protection.

Technical Leadership

• Serve as the highest-level Kubernetes and platform engineering subject matter expert.
• Lead architecture reviews and provide technical guidance across multiple engineering teams.
• Mentor senior engineers and influence engineering excellence across the organization.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives involving platform engineering DevOps SRE security and application teams.
• Contribute to organizational technology strategy and long-term infrastructure planning.

Required Qualifications

• 12 years of infrastructure cloud engineering DevOps SRE or platform engineering experience.
• 7 years of hands-on Kubernetes experience in production environments.
• Deep expertise designing and operating Kubernetes platforms at enterprise scale.
• Strong experience with cloud platforms including AWS Azure and/or GCP.
• Advanced experience with GitOps methodologies and tools such as Argo CD Flux and Fleet.
• Expert-level Terraform experience and Infrastructure as Code practices.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes internals including:
• Control plane architecture
• Scheduling
• Networking
• Service discovery
• Storage
• Security
• Experience with service mesh technologies including Istio Linkerd or Consul.
• Expertise in Kubernetes networking CNI implementations and eBPF technologies such as Cilium.
• Strong programming experience with Go Python or similar languages.
• Experience building platform automation operators controllers or Kubernetes extensions.
• Experience with enterprise identity integration using OIDC SAML LDAP and cloud-native identity services.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Rancher Spectro Cloud Palette Crossplane Backstage or other platform engineering solutions.
• Experience designing Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs).
• Experience with OpenTelemetry and distributed tracing architectures.
• Experience implementing software supply chain security controls.
• Experience managing regulated or highly compliant environments.
• Active participation in Kubernetes or CNCF open-source communities.
• Experience presenting architecture guidance to executive leadership and technical stakeholders.

Preferred Certifications

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
• Google Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer
• Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
• HashiCorp Terraform Associate
• Linux Foundation Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
• CNCF Kubestronaut Program Certifications

We are an equal-opportunity employer and do not discriminate because of race color religion sex national origin ancestry marital status veteran status age disability sexual orientation or gender identity or expression or any other legally protected category. InterSystems is an E-Verify Employer in the United States.

About InterSystems

InterSystems a creative data technology provider delivers a unified foundation for next-generation applications for healthcare finance manufacturing and supply chain customers in more than 80 countries. Our data platforms solve interoperability speed and scalability problems for large organizations around the globe to unlock the power of data and allow people to perceive data in imaginative ways. Established in 1978 InterSystems is committed to excellence through its 247 support for customers and partners around the world. Privately held and headquartered in Boston Massachusetts InterSystems has 38 offices in 28 countries worldwide. For more information please visit.