Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Kubernetes

Okta•Washington, DC

3d•$174,000 - $267,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) will play a key role in building and managing Kubernetes platforms that support cloud-native applications and services. This position focuses on architecting and managing reliable, scalable, and secure Kubernetes-based platforms on AWS, ensuring high availability and performance while optimizing costs and automation. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience with AWS infrastructure, Kubernetes platform creation, Helm charts, Karpenter scaling, and Istio service mesh. Okta Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) provides easy, secure access for your workforce so you can focus on other strategic priorities—like reducing costs, and doing more for your customers. If you like to be challenged and have a passion for solving large-scale automation, testing, and tuning problems, we would love to hear from you. The ideal candidate is someone who exemplifies the ethics of, “If you have to do something more than once, automate it” and who can rapidly self-educate on new concepts and tools.

Requirements

4+ years of experience with Kubernetes/Helm
4+ years of Experience with Terraform.
5+ years of Experience with AWS
Experience with multi-region cloud environments.
Proven experience with AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFormation, IAM, etc.) and solid understanding of cloud-native architectures.
Strong expertise in Kubernetes platform creation, management, and optimisation (e.g., setting up highly available clusters, networking, and storage).
Hands-on experience with Helm for Kubernetes application deployment and management.
Practical experience with Karpenter for dynamic scaling of Kubernetes clusters and optimising resource usage.
Expertise in managing and securing Istio for service mesh, including traffic management, security, and observability features.
Proficiency in CI/CD pipelines and automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab, CircleCI, Terraform, Ansible, Spinnaker).
Strong scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, or Go for infrastructure management and platform automation.
Experience with monitoring, logging, and alerting tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, and ELK Stack.

Nice To Haves

Understanding of security best practices for cloud platforms and Kubernetes (e.g., role-based access control (RBAC), encryption, and compliance frameworks).
Familiarity with Docker and containerization principles.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent professional experience).
Certifications (Preferred): CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer), or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer are highly desirable.
This position requires the ability to access federal environments and/or have access to protected federal data. As a condition of employment for this position, the successful candidate must be able to submit documentation establishing U.S. Person status (e.g. a U.S. Citizen, National, Lawful Permanent Resident, Refugee, or Asylee. 22 CFR 120.15) upon hire.
Requires in-person onboarding and travel to our San Francisco, CA HQ office or our Chicago office during the first week of employment.

Responsibilities

Kubernetes Platform Creation: Design, implement, and maintain highly available, scalable, and fault-tolerant Kubernetes platforms. Ensure clusters are optimized for production workloads, providing high resilience and operational efficiency.
AWS Infrastructure Management: Build, manage, and optimize AWS cloud infrastructure, including EKS,ECS, S3, VPCs, RDS, IAM, and more. Implement best practices for cost management, scaling, and security within AWS.
Helm Management: Utilize Helm to automate and streamline the deployment of applications and services to Kubernetes clusters. Create, maintain, and manage Helm charts for production-ready deployments.
Karpenter Implementation: Implement and manage Karpenter to dynamically scale Kubernetes clusters in response to workload demands.
Istio Service Mesh Management: Configure and manage Istio to provide service-to-service communication, security, and observability within the Kubernetes clusters. Enable fine-grained traffic management, service discovery, and policy enforcement.
Platform Automation & Scaling: Automate the deployment, scaling, and management of infrastructure and applications. Work with CI/CD pipelines to ensure a seamless flow from development to production with minimal downtime.
Incident Management & Troubleshooting: Respond to incidents, troubleshoot, and resolve system issues related to performance, availability, and security in a timely and effective manner.
Security & Compliance: Design and implement secure cloud infrastructure with appropriate access controls, network security, and compliance frameworks.
Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: Create and maintain detailed documentation for Kubernetes platform setup, operational procedures, and best practices. Promote knowledge sharing across teams.