Platform/Kubernetes Engineer

JT4•Las Vegas, NV

11h

About The Position

JT4, LLC provides engineering and technical support to western test ranges for the U.S. Air Force, Space Force, and Navy under the Joint Range Technical Services Contract (J-Tech II). The Platform and Kubernetes Engineer manages, architects, and modernizes container orchestration platforms across on-premises, air-gapped, and secure cloud environments. The role is the primary subject matter expert for container platforms, supporting bare-metal and lightweight edge/development clusters such as Talos, Linux, and MicroK8s, enterprise orchestration such as Red Hat OpenShift, and potential integration into secure hybrid cloud boundaries including AWS FENCES. The engineer collaborates with system administrators, DevSecOps engineers, cybersecurity analysts, and software developers to deliver resilient container infrastructure, automated runner environments, and secure packaging pipelines. Responsibilities span Kubernetes operations and storage, AWS integration, CI/CD runners and artifact management, networking, security and certificate administration, documentation, and escalation support. Work is performed in a typical office environment with no unusual hazards. Occasional lifting of up to 20 pounds, constant sitting at a computer terminal, constant use of sight, speech and hearing abilities, and constant mental alertness are required. Travel to remote company work locations may be required. The work supports a federal government contract requiring U.S. citizenship; some jobs may require eligibility for a government security clearance or specified licenses or certifications.

Requirements

Meet one of the following education and experience combinations: a bachelor’s degree in an associated discipline and at least four years of related experience; a master’s degree in an associated discipline and at least two years of experience; or a PhD in an associated discipline.
Experience with computer-based systems and applications.
Programming skills in languages used for job-specific programming tasks.
Familiarity with industry-standard hardware and software design and documentation techniques.
Experience with systems engineering and software development lifecycles.
Effective oral and written communication skills.
Good planning and organizational skills.
U.S. citizenship is required for the federal government contract supporting this work.
Some jobs may require eligibility for a government security clearance, a state-issued driver’s license, or other licenses or certifications.

Nice To Haves

Experience operating, patching, and maintaining infrastructure in disconnected, air-gapped, or classified networks, including DoD IL5/IL6 or AWS FENCES.
Production experience deploying and tuning Actions Runner Controller (ARC) for containerized GitHub self-hosted runners.
Exposure to AWS CodeCommit, CodeDeploy, or automated CloudFormation/Terraform infrastructure-as-code workflows.
Familiarity with distributed block and object storage systems on bare-metal hardware.
Experience with physical server hardware diagnostics, iDRAC/iLO remote management, and network interface teaming.
Experience deploying and configuring cluster monitoring and alerting solutions such as Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenSearch/Elasticsearch.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) certification.
Hands-on experience deploying, configuring, and troubleshooting Kubernetes clusters, including Talos Linux, MicroK8s, or Red Hat OpenShift.
Strong Linux administration experience with RHEL, Ubuntu, or immutable Linux distributions; shell proficiency and comfort using the command-line interface.
Ability to automate administrative tasks using Bash, Python, or PowerShell.
Practical understanding of Git, branching workflows, source repository platforms such as GitHub or GitLab, and continuous integration pipelines.
Understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, subnetting, reverse proxies, and traffic routing.
Hands-on experience configuring and debugging SSL/TLS certificates and mutual TLS (mTLS) in Linux servers and container environments.
Practical experience or strong foundational exposure to AWS IAM, VPC, EC2, S3, EKS, ECR, and Application/Network Load Balancers.
CompTIA Security+ certification.

Responsibilities

Architect, deploy, patch, and maintain multi-distribution Kubernetes environments across bare-metal, virtualized, and cloud infrastructure, including Talos Linux and MicroK8s.
Ensure high availability, performance, and resource optimization across development and production clusters.
Manage container persistent volumes, stateful workloads, and distributed storage clusters such as Rook-Ceph and Longhorn.
Support physical server maintenance, rack deployments, and bare-metal operating system provisioning for cluster nodes.
Integrate on-premises Kubernetes platforms with cloud services, including hands-on administration or integration with AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
Provision and troubleshoot cloud infrastructure using AWS services including EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, Lambda, and Network and Application Load Balancers.
Support the secure network boundary and data synchronization between on-premises developer networks and AWS FENCES.
Stand up, configure, and maintain self-hosted pipeline runners, particularly Actions Runner Controller (ARC) on Kubernetes for GitHub Actions.
Maintain and secure container registries and artifact repositories, including AWS ECR, Harbor, Nexus, and Artifactory.
Partner with DevSecOps engineers on code deployment pipelines, version-control integrations, and release packaging.
Manage the lifecycle of SSL/TLS certificates across Linux operating systems and Kubernetes ingress controllers.
Configure and troubleshoot cluster networking, software-defined networking, ingress controllers, reverse proxies, and virtual or physical load balancers.
Enforce security baselines and access policies in compliance with DoD/DoW cybersecurity standards across air-gapped and connected environments.
Produce and maintain operational runbooks, disaster recovery procedures, and cluster architecture diagrams.
Provide escalation support to system administrators and software development teams facing infrastructure-level blockers.
Read, understand, and implement applicable operational, safety, quality, and environmental requirements, plans, procedures, and policies.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Benefits active on Day 1
Life insurance
Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts
Disability insurance
Paid time off
401(k) plan options with employer match: JT4 matches 50%, up to an 8% contribution, with 100% immediate vesting
Tuition reimbursement