Crossplane SME Large Enterprise Infrastructure Consultant

Crossplane SME Large Enterprise Infrastructure Consultant

Location: Remote

Duration: 3-month contract (with strong potential for extension)

Industry: Pharmaceutical

Job Summary:

We are seeking a Crossplane Subject Matter Expert (SME) to join a high-impact initiative at a global pharmaceutical leader in partnership with an established consulting firm. This role is focused on designing and implementing a universal control plane architecture to streamline and standardize IT services across product teams at an enterprise scale.

The ideal candidate will have deep hands-on experience with Crossplane in a large enterprise environment. The SME will work closely with a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, architects, and product owners to develop a scalable platform, integrate enterprise services, and drive organizational adoption.

Key Responsibilities:

• Architect, develop, and implement a Crossplane-based universal control plane for IT services at Merck.
• Standardize the consumption of enterprise services across different product teams by creating a unified console, SDK, and documented endpoints.
• Collaborate with engineering squads to support the MVP rollout, onboarding four key product teams, including Network Services and Enterprise Container Platform (CAST).
• Evaluate and address challenges in integrating Crossplane with existing enterprise services and containerized environments.
• Work closely with product owners, architects, and engineers to ensure seamless adoption and transition from legacy service models.
• Act as the SME for Crossplane-related decisions, design considerations, and hands-on implementation within a highly regulated and complex IT environment.
• Assist in backlog refinement and roadmap planning for the platform s long-term evolution within their IT strategy.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise security, compliance, and operational requirements throughout the project lifecycle.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Mandatory:
• Proven hands-on experience deploying and managing Crossplane at a large enterprise scale.
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes, container orchestration, and cloud-native architectures.
• Familiarity with enterprise container platforms (e.g., CAST, OpenShift, Rancher, etc.).
• Experience designing and implementing control planes to unify IT services across teams.
• Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform) and integrating cloud services using Crossplane.
• Strong background in infrastructure as code (IaC), automation, and platform engineering.
• Ability to troubleshoot and optimize large-scale distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of enterprise security, compliance, and regulatory constraints in IT infrastructure.
• Experience working in highly regulated environments (Pharma, Healthcare, or Financial Services preferred but not required).
• Nice to Have:
• Experience working in pharmaceutical or healthcare IT infrastructure.
• Experience supporting IT service onboarding and organizational change management.
• Understanding of multi-region cloud infrastructure and distributed enterprise environments.

Soft Skills & Attributes:

• Ability to work hands-on while also guiding architectural decisions at a strategic level.
• Collaborative and communicative, with the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary, remote team environment.
• Strong problem-solving mindset, with the ability to address technical challenges at scale.
• Experience in coaching and guiding internal teams through new technology adoption.
• Ability to quickly adapt to evolving project needs in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment.