Kubernetes Principal Engineer/ Architect

Xcel Engineering•Oak Ridge, TN

60d•Onsite

About The Position

XCEL Engineering is seeking a qualified applicant for a Kubernetes Principal Engineer/ Architect. As a Platform Engineer, you will architect, implement, and maintain the infrastructure underpinning our on-premises Kubernetes clusters, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and maintainability. You will lead the technical direction of our platform engineering initiatives, evaluate and integrate key technologies, and deliver a robust internal platform that powers development across the organization.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in computer science or closely related field and a minimum of 8 years as a Platforms engineer.
At least 5 years of Kubernetes experience.
An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
The ability to obtain and maintain a Department of Energy "Q" clearance is required.
This requires US Citizenship.
Languages: Go, Python, Bash
CI/CD: GitLab CI, ArgoCD
IaC/Config Management: Puppet, Helm
Kubernetes & Ecosystem: On-prem K8s, Custom Operators, Service Mesh
Operating Systems: Linux-based OS management at the hardware level

Nice To Haves

Excellent interpersonal/communication skills, and the ability to work as part of a team.
Strong working knowledge of Unix system fundamentals and common network protocols.
Experience managing Linux/UNIX operating systems in a heterogeneous environment.
Solid understanding of networked computing environment concepts.
Excellent understanding of networking, particularly Linux and Kubernetes networking
Experience with instrumenting bare metal and VMWare infrastructure
Ability to develop and maintain programs and scripts that aid in the operation and automation using various shell (primarily bash) and high-level languages (Python or Go).
Ability to proactively identify performance issues, problems, and areas for improvement.
Ability to identify requirements and to define, plan, and implement requisite solutions.
Ability to plan, organize, prioritize tasks, and complete assigned projects with minimal supervision.
Experience with continuous integration and continuous deployment software methodologies
An understanding of code review and familiarity with tools like GitHub and GitLab
Experience using tools such as Nagios, Grafana and Prometheus to monitor systems, metrics, and create dashboards.
Experience designing and implement highly available systems/services utilizing virtual machines and Kubernetes resources.
Experience participating in an opensource community with patches accepted upstream.
Experience deploying and maintaining automated configuration management software such as Puppet or Ansible
Experience implementing systems-level security technologies like SELinux and following security best practices.

Responsibilities

Platform Architecture & Implementation Lead the design and technical implementation of on-premises Kubernetes clusters that replace and improve upon features previously provided by OpenShift.
Select, evaluate, and integrate critical components for networking, CI/CD tooling, OS management, service mesh, and Kubernetes operators-excluding observability, which is handled by a dedicated SRE sub-team.
Build test environments to evaluate tooling based on performance, feature set, and maintainability-especially for components that must work reliably with on-premise hardware and OS requirements.
Own upgrades, security hardening, monitoring integration, and scalability of all cluster infrastructure.
Write and maintain infrastructure and deployment code using tools such as ArgoCD (GitOps), Puppet (OS management), Go, Python, Bash, and GitLab CI.
Support the use and understanding of in-house Kubernetes operators and serve as a secondary maintainer for those controllers.
Collaborate on building a next-generation internal developer platform inspired by tools like Backstage or AWS Proton, focused on increasing development efficiency and security.
Work with the cybersecurity team to define secure image baselines and automate the patching pipeline for container images and golden base layers.
Engage with development teams to understand platform needs and tailor the cluster experience to meet evolving requirements.
Provide architectural guidance, code reviews, and pair programming support to a team of 8-12 engineers.
Contribute to onboarding, team documentation, and process improvement initiatives.
Act as a go-to technical expert for all Kubernetes platform questions across the engineering organization.
Partner closely with internal cybersecurity and development teams to ensure the platform meets security, compliance, and usability expectations.
Participate in cross-functional projects related to platform enhancements and cluster lifecycle automation.
Be able to represent the Platforms team with vendors and both internal and external collaborators and partners.