[MSO] Senior DevOps Engineer (Kubernetes) | 6-month contract

Software Mind

About The Position

Software Mind is seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to join a team that builds and operates managed Kubernetes services for a Dutch managed services provider. The Kubernetes clusters run at scale on the provider’s own on-premises infrastructure and host production workloads for its customers. The same team builds and operates the platform, so engineers are responsible for the systems they automate and participate in on-call support. The initial priority is to learn the environment quickly and take on operational work. After onboarding, the engineer is expected to handle production cluster incidents independently and join the on-call rotation. The role then includes cluster lifecycle management, automation, platform improvements, and direct work with customers deploying workloads on the platform.

Requirements

At least 5 years of hands-on Kubernetes experience, including running and debugging production clusters.
Ability to diagnose Kubernetes failures under load, during upgrades, and at networking and storage layers.
Strong Linux fundamentals and systematic troubleshooting skills.
Practical GitOps experience.
Experience writing and maintaining Helm charts.
Kubernetes networking experience at the CNI level, including Cilium, ingress, load balancing, and DNS.
Kubernetes storage experience, including CSI, persistent volumes, and stateful workloads.
Experience working directly with customers and explaining technical problems and consequences to people outside the team.
English proficiency at C1 level.
Ability to take ownership of problems and carry them through independently.
Ability to identify degradation and address or raise problems before they become incidents.
Ability to become productive quickly in an unfamiliar environment by working in it and asking relevant questions.

Nice To Haves

A current CKA, CKAD, or CKS certification; CKA is preferred.
Experience with cluster lifecycle tooling such as Cluster API, kubeadm, or Rancher/RKE2.
Python scripting and automation experience.
A public track record such as open-source contributions, talks, or blog posts.
Additional certifications such as Kubestronaut.

Responsibilities

Troubleshoot and resolve incidents in production Kubernetes clusters running on-premises at scale.
Deploy, upgrade, and maintain the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters.
Work directly with platform customers to help deploy workloads and diagnose problems.
Improve the platform through automation and GitOps.
Write and maintain runbooks to make operational knowledge available to the team.
Join the on-call rotation after an onboarding period.