Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Peraton

1d•$135,000 - $216,000

About The Position

The Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer is a hands-on technical role responsible for the design, implementation, and ongoing operation of a multi-tenant AWS EKS platform. This position focuses on building, automating, and maintaining a secure, scalable, and highly available Kubernetes environment supporting mission-critical workloads. The engineer will work closely with application teams, cloud operations, and automation teams to deliver platform capabilities including tenant onboarding, infrastructure as code (IaC), networking, security, and continuous platform improvement.

Requirements

BS/BA + 12 years of experience, including:
5+ years of hands-on Kubernetes experience (EKS strongly preferred)
Strong experience with:
AWS EKS in production environments
Helm, Terraform, ArgoCD
AWS IAM, RBAC, IRSA
Hands-on experience with:
Cilium (required)
Karpenter (required)
Solid understanding of:
Kubernetes networking, ingress, and service exposure
Container registry management (ECR or equivalent)
Platform security and compliance (FedRAMP/NIST preferred)
Experience with monitoring and observability tools:
Prometheus, Grafana
Scripting and automation skills:
Bash, Python (Go is a plus)
Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills in distributed systems
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Ability to work nights and/or weekends for patching and deployments
Ability to obtain a Public Trust clearance
Must be a US Citizen

Responsibilities

Administer Kubernetes clusters (AWS EKS), including provisioning, upgrades, node group management, and patching
Manage and maintain Kubernetes platform components including Cilium, Karpenter, and related tooling
Configure and maintain Kubernetes networking (DNS, ingress, firewall/TIC 3.0 alignment, VPN/tunnels)
Implement and support load balancing solutions (public and internal ingress controllers)
Design, build, and maintain Terraform modules and Helm charts for platform and tenant environments
Support and enhance GitOps workflows (ArgoCD) for consistent and repeatable deployments
Develop automation for provisioning, scaling, and platform lifecycle management
Contribute to reusable deployment patterns and self-service capabilities (“golden paths”)
Support tenant onboarding: repo setup, CI/CD pipeline configuration, Helm chart deployment.
Collaborate with application teams to ensure proper platform usage, standards, and best practices
Implement and maintain platform security aligned with FedRAMP/NIST and TIC 3.0 requirements
Manage container image lifecycle including base image updates, patching, and distribution
Support vulnerability remediation and platform-level security incident response
Execute and support backup/restore procedures and disaster recovery operations
Monitor platform health using Prometheus and Grafana
Troubleshoot complex Kubernetes, networking, and application integration issues
Optimize cluster performance, reliability, and cost efficiency
Develop and maintain platform documentation including SOPs, runbooks, and security procedures
Participate in after-hours maintenance, patching windows, and on-call rotations