Kubernetes Administrator

Role Title: Kubernetes Administrator

Location: Charlotte, NC , Onsite, Hybrid

Mandatory Skills:

• 10+ years of hands-on Kubernetes experience in production environments
• 2+ years of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) experience required

Role Description / Skills:

We are seeking an experienced Kubernetes Engineer/Administrator to manage and scale enterprise-grade Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) infrastructure. This role involves designing, implementing, and maintaining production Kubernetes clusters supporting critical workloads across multiple Azure regions.

Primary Responsibilities:

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Management

• Design, deploy, and manage enterprise-scale AKS clusters across regions
• Implement private AKS clusters with advanced networking
• Configure customer-managed encryption keys (CMK)
• Implement blue/green deployments for zero downtime
• Manage cluster lifecycle (upgrades, scaling, DR)
• Optimize performance, cost, and resource utilization
• Implement AKS Fleet Manager for multi-cluster orchestration
• Configure AKS Automatic for simplified operations
• Manage AKS Managed Namespaces for multi-tenancy

Security & Compliance

• Implement private networking with Azure Private Endpoints
• Configure Workload Identity (OIDC) and managed identities
• Integrate Azure Policy for governance
• Implement Kubernetes RBAC and Azure RBAC
• Manage secrets via Azure Key Vault (CSI drivers)
• Secure AKS communication with Azure services
• Implement network policies and pod security standards

Service Mesh & Advanced Networking

• Deploy and manage Linkerd service mesh
• Implement mTLS with certificate rotation
• Configure traffic splitting and load balancing
• Troubleshoot service mesh issues
• Integrate metrics with Azure Monitor

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Develop Terraform modules for AKS infrastructure
• Build reusable production-ready patterns
• Implement GitOps workflows
• Manage Terraform state and lifecycle
• Maintain documentation

GitOps & CI/CD

• Implement GitOps using ArgoCD
• Build CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions
• Integrate AKS with Azure Container Registry (ACR)
• Automate testing and validation
• Manage deployment strategies (rolling, canary, blue/green)

Azure Platform Integration

• Integrate AKS with Azure services
• Configure private endpoints
• Implement VNet integration and subnet delegation
• Design cross-region connectivity

Monitoring, Observability & Operations

• Implement monitoring with Azure Monitor
• Configure Log Analytics
• Build dashboards and alerts
• Use Linkerd for observability
• Troubleshoot cluster and networking issues
• Conduct capacity planning and cost optimization
• Participate in on-call rotation
• Perform post-incident analysis

Required Qualifications:

Technical Skills – Azure & Kubernetes

• 5+ years Kubernetes experience (production)
• 2+ years AKS experience
• Strong Terraform expertise
• Deep Kubernetes architecture knowledge
• Experience with private AKS & Private Link
• Azure networking (VNets, NSGs, DNS, peering)
• Managed identities, Workload Identity, RBAC
• Azure Key Vault integration (CSI, encryption sets)
• Customer-managed encryption keys
• Azure Container Registry (geo-replication, scanning)
• Knowledge of AKS advanced features (Fleet Manager, AKS Automatic)

Infrastructure as Code & Automation

• Advanced Terraform module development
• Git version control (GitHub)
• GitOps tools (ArgoCD)
• GitHub Actions for CI/CD
• Infrastructure testing practices

Platform & Tools

• Azure CLI & PowerShell
• kubectl, helm, kustomize
• Linux administration
• Scripting (Bash, Python, PowerShell)
• Docker / containerd
• GitHub workflows

Soft Skills

• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills
• Excellent documentation and knowledge sharing
• Team collaboration and mentoring
• Effective communication
• Self-driven and project ownership

Preferred Qualifications:

Advanced Kubernetes & Cloud Skills

• CKA or CKS certification
• Linkerd service mesh experience
• AKS Fleet Manager expertise
• AKS Automatic & managed namespaces
• Kubernetes operators & CRDs
• Service mesh (Linkerd, Istio, OSM)
• Advanced CNI (Azure CNI, Calico, Cilium)
• Multi-cluster management
• Experience with GCP GKE / AWS EKS

Azure Certifications

• AZ-305 (Solutions Architect Expert)
• AZ-500 (Security Engineer)
• AZ-104 (Administrator)

Platform Engineering Experience

• Internal developer platforms on Kubernetes
• Policy-as-code (Azure Policy, OPA, Kyverno)
• Cost optimization / FinOps
• Chaos engineering
• Multi-region disaster recovery