About Position:
We are seeking a highly experienced Cloud Native Engineer (Kubernetes Platform) to lead the design, provisioning, and operational excellence of Kubernetes platforms across both lightweight and enterprise-grade environments.
This role is critical in building secure, scalable, and production-ready platform foundations that enable modern cloud-native application delivery at scale.
- Role: Cloud Native Engineer (Kubernetes Platform)
- Location: Pune & Bangalore
- Experience: 15yr+
- Job Type: Full Time Employment
What You'll Do:
Kubernetes Platform Ownership
- Design, provision, and manage Kubernetes clusters across:
- Freebird (k3s) for lightweight environments
- Managed Kubernetes (EKS/GKE/AKS) for production workloads
- Architect multi-cluster and multi-environment (dev/stage/prod) strategies
- Own end-to-end cluster lifecycle management (provisioning, upgrades, decommissioning)
Compute & Node Management
- Design node pools with autoscaling, taints/tolerations, and spot vs on-demand strategies
- Optimize cost, performance, and workload isolation
- Align workload scheduling with defined SLAs
Networking & Traffic Management
- Implement and manage Ingress Controllers (NGINX, ALB, or equivalent)
- Define service exposure patterns (ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer)
- Enforce network policies for secure pod-to-pod and external traffic
- Configure TLS termination and advanced routing strategies
Security & Compliance
- Implement Pod Security Standards and admission controls
- Design RBAC and namespace isolation policies
- Ensure cluster hardening and runtime security best practices
- Align with enterprise security frameworks and tools
Certificate & Identity Management
- Manage cert-manager for automated certificate lifecycle
- Handle TLS provisioning, renewal, and domain management
- Integrate with external CAs (e.g., Lets Encrypt, enterprise CA)
Service Mesh & Advanced Networking
- Deploy and manage service mesh platforms (Istio, Linkerd)
- Enable mTLS for secure service-to-service communication
- Support canary releases, A/B routing, and traffic shaping
- Improve observability via metrics, logging, and tracing
Platform Reliability & Operations
- Ensure high availability, scalability, and resilience of clusters
- Troubleshoot cluster-level issues (networking, scheduling, performance)
- Define and enforce SLOs/SLAs
Collaboration & Enablement
- Work closely with DevOps and Platform Engineering teams for CI/CD integration
- Align with IaC practices (Terraform-based provisioning)
- Mentor application teams on Kubernetes best practices and optimization
Expertise You'll Bring:
- 15+ years of experience in cloud engineering, platform engineering, or SRE roles
- Deep hands-on experience with Kubernetes cluster provisioning, scaling, and troubleshooting
- Strong experience across self-managed (k3s/k8s) and managed cloud Kubernetes platforms
- Advanced understanding of:
- Kubernetes networking, DNS, ingress/egress
- Network policies and service exposure
- TLS, certificates, and runtime security
- Proven experience with service mesh implementations (Istio / Linkerd)
- Hands-on expertise with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or similar tools)
- Strong scripting/programming skills (Go, Python, or Bash preferred)
- Exposure to observability ecosystems (Prometheus, Grafana, logging frameworks) is a plus
- Education: Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
Benefits:
- Competitive salary and benefits package
- Culture focused on talent development with quarterly growth opportunities and company-sponsored higher education and certifications
- Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies
- Employee engagement initiatives such as project parties, flexible work hours, and Long Service awards
- Annual health check-ups
- Insurance coverage: group term life, personal accident, and Mediclaim hospitalization for self, spouse, two children, and parents
Values-Driven, People-Centric & Inclusive Work Environment:
Persistent is dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We invite applications from all qualified individuals, including those with disabilities, and regardless of gender or gender preference. We welcome diverse candidates from all backgrounds.
- We support hybrid work and flexible hours to fit diverse lifestyles.
- Our office is accessibility-friendly, with ergonomic setups and assistive technologies to support employees with physical disabilities.
- If you are a person with disabilities and have specific requirements, please inform us during the application process or at any time during your employment
Let's unleash your full potential at Persistent - persistent.com/careers
Persistent is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind.
