Kubernetes Engineer

Job Title: Rancher Kubernetes Engineer
Contract Period: 6 months
Work location: 645 Clyde Ave., Mountain View, CA 94043

Required Experience: Minimum 5 years of direct Rancher and Kubernetes experience

Job Summary:

We are seeking a seasoned Rancher Kubernetes Engineer with deep expertise in container orchestration, DevOps practices, and cloud-native infrastructure. You will be instrumental in designing, deploying, and managing scalable Kubernetes environments using Rancher to support our fast-growing eCommerce platform. The Rancher Kubernetes engineer will be the key person in migrating a Rancher managed Kubernetes cluster to AWS EKS. The ideal candidate thrives in a high-performance environment and has a strong understanding of infrastructure that supports high-traffic, customer-facing applications. The scope of the work is to assess GPv2 Rancher cluster/configuration, upgrade to newest version, and train the team to manage Rancher cluster. The position is expected to be at least 6 months.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, deploy, and manage Kubernetes clusters using Rancher in production-grade environments.
• Implement and optimize CI/CD pipelines tailored for containerized eCommerce applications.
• Ensure high availability, scalability, and performance of the Kubernetes infrastructure to meet SLA requirements.
• Manage and direct the migration of a Rancher managed Kubernetes cluster to AWS EKS
• Collaborate with application developers, QA, and operations teams to containerize and deploy microservices.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve performance, reliability, and security issues.
• Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Helm, and other tools.
• Implement RBAC, security policies, and secrets management aligned with compliance standards (e.g., PCI-DSS).
• Drive observability through centralized logging, metrics, and alerting using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK.
• Lead Kubernetes upgrades, patching, and lifecycle management via Rancher.
• Maintain cost-effective infrastructure strategies in cloud or hybrid environments (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, or on-prem).
• Provide technical leadership and mentor junior DevOps/Platform Engineers.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering, or Platform Engineering.
• 5+ years of experience specifically with Rancher-managed Kubernetes clusters.
• Proficiency in Docker, Helm, and Kubernetes (CKA/CKAD preferred).
• Expert knowledge in AWS EKS using Docker as an Orchestration tool
• Strong scripting and automation experience in Bash, Python, or Go.
• Deep understanding of Linux systems, networking, and system-level debugging.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform), including managed Kubernetes services.
• Solid grasp of CI/CD systems like GitLab CI, Jenkins, ArgoCD, Flux.
• Familiarity with eCommerce application requirements such as session management, autoscaling, zero downtime deployments, and PCI compliance.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across technical and non-technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Application Developer (CKAD).
• Certified Rancher Engineer (CRE)
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Professional with deep experience in migrating and configuring Kubernetes to AWS EKS
• Experience in high-availability eCommerce or retail infrastructure environments.
• Exposure to service meshes (Istio, Linkerd) and API gateways (Kong, Ambassador).
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and real-time monitoring tools.