Senior Kubernetes Administrator

Job Title: Senior Kubernetes Administrator

Job Location: Charlotte, NC

Job Type: Contract

Job Overview:

Requirement/Must Have:

• Strong hands-on experience administering Kubernetes in production environments.
• Deep expertise in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Strong experience with Microsoft Azure, including compute, networking, and security services.
• Proven experience with Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and management.
• Strong troubleshooting skills across Kubernetes, networking, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience managing Linux-based systems.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management, including provisioning, upgrades, patching, scaling, and decommissioning.
• Experience configuring and managing node pools, autoscaling, taints, tolerations, and resource quotas.
• Experience implementing and managing Kubernetes networking, including Azure CNI, ingress controllers, services, and DNS.
• Experience with monitoring, logging, alerting, and incident response in production environments.
• Strong knowledge of Kubernetes security best practices, including RBAC, Network Policies, Pod Security Standards, and secrets management.
• Ability to support compliance, audit, and governance requirements.

Experience:

• Proven experience administering and maintaining production-grade AKS clusters.
• Experience working with single-region and multi-region Kubernetes cluster environments.
• Experience troubleshooting cluster-level and workload-level issues involving pods, nodes, networking, storage, and performance.
• Experience collaborating with DevOps, SRE, and application teams in cloud-native environments.
• Experience providing technical guidance and mentoring to junior engineers.

Responsibilities:

• Administer, operate, and maintain production-grade AKS clusters.
• Perform cluster lifecycle management, including provisioning, upgrades, patching, scaling, and decommissioning.
• Configure and manage node pools, autoscaling, taints, tolerations, and resource quotas.
• Implement and manage Kubernetes networking using Azure CNI, ingress controllers, services, and DNS.
• Troubleshoot cluster-level and workload-level issues related to pods, nodes, networking, storage, and performance.
• Design and manage AKS integrations with Azure services such as Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway, NGINX Ingress, Azure Key Vault, Azure Storage, and Azure Container Registry.
• Ensure high availability, resilience, and disaster recovery for Kubernetes workloads.
• Manage Azure IAM, RBAC, and managed identities for secure access.
• Use Terraform to provision and manage AKS clusters, networking, and supporting Azure resources.
• Maintain reusable and modular Terraform code following best practices.
• Automate cluster operations and maintenance activities wherever possible.
• Implement Kubernetes security best practices including RBAC, Network Policies, Pod Security Standards, and secure secrets management.
• Ensure secure container runtime and image practices.
• Support compliance, audit, and governance requirements.
• Set up and manage monitoring, logging, and alerting for AKS clusters and workloads.
• Perform capacity planning and cost optimization.
• Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, and preventive actions.
• Work closely with DevOps, SRE, and application teams to support deployments.
• Provide guidance and mentoring to junior engineers.
• Contribute to operational documentation, runbooks, and best practices.

Should Have:

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines such as Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI.
• Knowledge of Helm, Kustomize, or similar Kubernetes packaging tools.
• Exposure to SRE practices and reliability engineering.
• Experience with multi-cluster or hybrid Kubernetes environments.
• Kubernetes certifications such as CKA or CKAD preferred.
• Azure certifications such as AZ-104 or AZ-305 preferred.

Skills:

• Kubernetes.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Microsoft Azure.
• Terraform.
• Linux Administration.
• Azure Networking.
• Azure CNI.
• Ingress Controllers.
• DNS.
• Azure Monitor.
• Log Analytics.
• Azure Load Balancer.
• Application Gateway.
• NGINX Ingress.
• Azure Key Vault.
• Azure Storage.
• Azure Container Registry (ACR).
• IAM.
• RBAC.
• Managed Identities.
• Network Policies.
• Pod Security Standards.
• Monitoring and Alerting.
• Incident Response.
• Root Cause Analysis.
• Capacity Planning.
• Cost Optimization.
• CI/CD.
• Azure DevOps.
• GitHub Actions.
• GitLab CI.
• Helm.
• Kustomize.
• SRE Practices.

Qualification and Education:

• Relevant degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field preferred.
• Equivalent professional experience may be considered.
• Kubernetes certifications such as CKA or CKAD preferred.
• Azure certifications such as AZ-104 or AZ-305 preferred.