Rancher SME

Job Title:  Rancher SME 
Location: Princeton - NJ - 08540
Mode : Contract (6+ Months) – Onsite 

 

Qualifications:
•    Design and implement Rancher-managed Kubernetes clusters (RKE, RKE2, K3s, EKS, AKS, GKE).
•    Architect high availability (HA) Rancher setups.
•    Define multi-cluster and multi-tenant strategies using Rancher projects, namespaces, and RBAC.
•    Integrate Kubernetes with VMware, Bare Metal, and Cloud platforms.
•    Establish standardized cluster blueprints and reference architectures.
•    Act as final escalation (L3) for Kubernetes and Rancher incidents.
•    Diagnose and resolve Control plane failures
•    etcd performance and corruption issues
•    Pod scheduling and node pressure issues
•    CNI (Calico / Cilium) networking problems
•    CSI storage failures (Ceph, Longhorn, EBS, Azure Disk, NFS)
•    Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and provide preventive recommendations.
•    Install, upgrade, and maintain Rancher Server.
•    Manage cluster lifecycles using Rancher UI & APIs.
•    Implement and manage Rancher RBAC, Authentication (AD / LDAP / Azure AD / SSO)
•    Global & cluster-level policies
•    Maintain Rancher backups, DR, and recovery procedures
•    Enforce Kubernetes security best practices like Pod Security Standards (PSS)
•    Network policies and Secrets management
•    integrate Kubernetes with CI/CD tools e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Argo CD
•    Enable GitOps workflows for application and cluster configuration.
•    Support Helm chart development and lifecycle management.
•    Assist development teams with Deployment strategies, Resource optimization
•    Troubleshooting application issues on Kubernetes

Experience:
•    6–10+ years in Linux / Infrastructure / Cloud
•    3–5+ years hands-on Kubernetes production experience
•    Strong expertise in Rancher (RKE / RKE2 / K3s)
•    Deep understanding of:
•    Kubernetes control plane
•    etcd
•    Networking (CNI)
•    Storage (CSI)