Architect - Kubernetes Cloud Platform Engineering

Marriott International•Bethesda, MD

42d

About The Position

The Architect of Kubernetes, Cloud Platform Engineering will lead engineering delivery and operations to design, deploy, and scale containerized platforms and CI/CD ecosystems. This role defines the Kubernetes platform architecture and acts as a hands-on engineer to turn vision into reality. Supported by a team of engineers, the ideal candidate has led large scale Platform-as-a-Service solutions and excels at setting technical direction while breaking delivery into actionable components. We are transforming the way technology is managed at Marriott. Kubernetes, automation, and GitOps-driven DevSecOps has become the new standard to enable rapid iteration, speed-to-market, and proactive security and operations. With leaders experienced in driving this transformation, we seek engineers passionate about evolving the organization and setting the gold standard for container orchestration and secure automation. We continue to transform how we run Kubernetes in a multi-cloud environment, so thought leadership and the ability to bring others along are key.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree in an engineering or computer science discipline and/or equivalent experience/certification
8+ years of progressive technology experience with a blend of deep technical knowledge and a customer-focused mindset that includes:
5+ years in an engineering role as a strategic thinker that relates technology solutions to customer use cases
4+ years' experience with Public Cloud technology stacks such as AWS, Azure, GCP or Alibaba.
4+ years' experience with containers - Kubernetes solution design, deployment, management and orchestration across multi-cloud environment
5+ years' experience driving highly technical architecture, and driving outcomes with automation and Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Helm
3+ years' experience building and operating CI/CD - build, deploy, release automation through pipelines
Delivery focused with experience in Kanban

Nice To Haves

Ability to design end-to-end architecture that supports 99.99% service availability with performance and cost considerations
Familiarity with cloud native database technologies (Amazon RDS, Aurora, Keyspaces, DocumentDB, Redis/Elasticache, Azure CosmosDB)
Familiarity with distributed systems such as Kafka, Couchbase, Cassandra, etc.
Familiarity with Go, Rust and/or Python
Exposure to Service Mesh technologies such as Istio, Linkerd, or Consul Connect
Excellent technical knowledge of current & emerging infrastructure systems & standards
Strong knowledge of the best available tools, software, applications, and systems for attaining best-in-class technology platforms across the enterprise.
Ability to create constructive relationships, influence, and communicate (to product team, engineering management, and non-technical staff).

Responsibilities

Full ownership of the Kubernetes platform lifecycle -â¯Provisioning, automation and modernization.
Operationally responsible for enterprise Kubernetes platform, serving in oncall rotation and as an escalation point of contact for any platform outages
Experienceâ¯designing and deploying Kubernetes clustersâ¯(e.g., OpenShift, EKS, AKS, GKE) from scratchâ¯using GitOps and automation
Proficiency inâ¯automating cluster provisioning and configurationâ¯using Terraform
Ability toâ¯configure control plane components, including networking (CNI), storage classes, RBAC, and pod security policies
Experience implementingâ¯multi-tenancy,â¯namespace isolation, andâ¯resource quotas
Hands-on experience withâ¯Helm chart developmentâ¯and Kubernetes Operators
Familiarity withâ¯service mesh technologiesâ¯(e.g., Istio) for traffic routing, mTLS, and workload observability
Proven ability toâ¯modernize application platformsâ¯to support container-based microservices
Experience buildingâ¯CI/CD pipelines integrated with Kubernetes, including GitOps workflows (e.g., ArgoCD, Flux)
Ownership ofâ¯cluster lifecycle management, including upgrades, patching, backup/restore, and disaster recovery
Integration ofâ¯monitoring and observability toolsâ¯(e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, OpenTelemetry) at the platform level
Implementation ofâ¯platform-level security controls, including policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper), secrets management (Vault), and IAM governance
Ability to enableâ¯developer self-serviceâ¯through platform tooling and automation
Experience supportingâ¯high-availability and fault-tolerant infrastructureâ¯for mission-critical workloads
Serve as technical lead for a team of the Kubernetes engineers, providing technical guidance, mentoring, and fostering a collaborative environment
Collaborate with cross-functional teams, such as software engineers, system administrators, and security teams, to ensure the alignment of security requirements throughout the development process.
Deploy, automate, maintain, and manage cloud infrastructure to ensure security, performance, and availability of production systems
Code solutions to continuously improve products and solutions to be scalable and highly available
Review issues logs and metrics to identify trends and solutions that should be implemented
Maintain in-depth documentation of activities and system configuration.
Perform troubleshooting, resolution, and problem analysis.
Participate in architectural discussions to help Application Teams make the most efficient choices.
Leads the "big picture" of challenges impacting the customer experience, including the technical, functional, and process considerations, and creatively defines the D&O strategy to address those challenges.
Develops and communicates a point of view on complex technical topics. Aligns multiple domains, both technical and non-technical, on this common vision.
Creates and articulates an innovative and compelling value proposition so that MI executives clearly realize the benefits and transformational value of automation.
Interviews talent, provides peer reviews/feedback frequently and fosters a modern engineering culture
Functions as a strategic senior technical expert within the department.
Develops specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish work.
Champions leaders' vision for product and service delivery.
Determines priorities, schedules, plans and necessary resources to promote feature completion.
Analyzes information and evaluates results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
Thinks creatively and practically to develop, execute and implement new products, features and enhancements.
Provides technical expertise and technical leadership within own and other teams.
Provides and helps implement recommendations to improve the effectiveness of solutions, processes and products.
Demonstrates advanced knowledge of job-relevant issues, products, systems, and processes.
Applies knowledge/judgment to resolve problems and achieve business goals.
Keeps up-to-date technically and applies new knowledge to job.
Performs other reasonable duties as required for this position.