Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Chicago/ Tempe – 3 days hybrid

$65-70/Hr. on C2C.

12+ Months

USC, GC, GC-EAD, and H4-EAD

Certificates in kubernetes.

No relocation.

Job Description:

Project Overview / Contractor's Role:

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer to support and operate an enterprise VMware Tanzu Kubernetes platform consisting of 100+ Kubernetes clusters across multiple environments, including Production. This role will partner closely with the current platform owner to provide operational support, on-call backup, and platform sustainment, helping ensure platform stability, availability, and compliance for critical business applications.

This role is hands-on and production-facing, with responsibilities spanning Kubernetes operations, incident response, platform maintenance, and support of application teams running mission-critical workloads.

Experience Level: 3 – Senior

Qualifications (must haves):

Kubernetes Experience

• Strong hands-on experience supporting Kubernetes in Production

• Solid understanding of Kubernetes fundamentals, including:

o Pods, Deployments, StatefulSets

o Services and Ingress

o Namespaces, RBAC, ConfigMaps, and Secrets

• Experience troubleshooting Kubernetes networking, scheduling, and resource issues

Platform & Infrastructure

• Experience operating Kubernetes on enterprise platforms (VMware Tanzu,

OpenShift, AKS, EKS, or similar)

• Strong Linux administration and troubleshooting skills

• Familiarity with container runtimes and container images

Operational Mindset

• Experience working in highly regulated, production environments

• Comfortable participating in on-call rotations and handling time-sensitive issues

• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to work independently

Nice to Have:

• Experience with VMware Tanzu Kubernetes or VMware-based Kubernetes platforms

• Scripting experience (Bash, Python) for operational automation

• Prior experience supporting large multi-cluster Kubernetes environments

Tasks & Responsibilities:

Kubernetes Platform Operations

• Support day-to-day operations of an enterprise Kubernetes platform (100+ clusters, ~50% production)

• Perform routine operational tasks including cluster maintenance, upgrades, patching, health checks, and capacity management

• Troubleshoot and resolve Kubernetes platform issues impacting cluster or application availability

• Participate in incident response, root-cause analysis, and post-incident reviews

On-Call & Backup Coverage

• Act as a backup platform engineer to enable on-call rotation and reduce key-person dependency

• Provide after-hours support as part of a shared on-call rotation

• Serve as a secondary escalation point for critical Production issues

Application & Platform Support

• Assist internal application teams with Kubernetes-related questions and issues

• Support common Kubernetes constructs such as Pods, Deployments, Services, Ingress, ConfigMaps, and Secrets

• Help teams troubleshoot networking, DNS, ingress, certificate, and resource-related issues

• Review application configurations for Kubernetes best practices and platform alignment

Enterprise Tooling & Integrations

• Work with integrated enterprise tools such as:

o Ingress controllers (e.g., Contour / Envoy)

o Logging platforms (e.g., Fluent Bit, centralized log aggregation)

o Monitoring/observability tools (e.g., Dynatrace or similar)

o Container registries (e.g., Harbor, JFrog, etc)

Documentation & Knowledge Sharing

• Help document operational procedures, runbooks, and troubleshooting guides

• Share Kubernetes knowledge and best practices with internal teams

• Assist in improving platform resiliency, operational maturity, and supportability