Principal Cloud & Kubernetes Engineer

InterSystems powers some of the world's most mission-critical healthcare, financial services, and data platforms. Our technology runs where reliability, security, and performance are not optional, and where platform engineering has a direct impact on clients and the people they serve.

As Managed Services and SaaS continue to modernize, Kubernetes is becoming a core foundation for how we deliver resilient, automated, and scalable services globally. This role offers the opportunity to help shape that platform at a meaningful scale: building the engineering patterns, automation, reliability practices, and operational discipline that will support the next generation of InterSystems cloud and managed services capabilities.

This is a chance to do deep technical work that matters: modern cloud-native engineering, real production responsibility, and the ability to influence how a global technology company evolves its service platforms.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal Kubernetes Engineer to serve as a senior hands-on technical leader for the build, operation, automation, and continuous improvement of InterSystems Kubernetes-based managed services and SaaS platforms. This role is intended for an engineer who has deep production Kubernetes experience and can lead complex implementation work across hybrid, private cloud, and public cloud environments.

The Principal Kubernetes Engineer will work closely with Kubernetes architects, platform leadership, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering, application, security, and infrastructure teams. The role is more experienced than a Senior Kubernetes Engineer and is expected to own the most complex engineering work, set implementation standards, guide other engineers, and translate architecture into reliable production platforms.

This role is not primarily a people-management position. It is a principal individual contributor role for a hands-on engineer who can operate at senior depth, lead technical execution, mentor others, and drive platform

Key Responsibilities

Principal-Level Platform Engineering

• Lead complex Kubernetes platform engineering initiatives across public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises environments.
• Translate reference architectures and platform standards into production-ready implementation patterns.
• Own advanced cluster lifecycle activities including provisioning, upgrades, patching, node strategy, workload placement, resource governance, and operational readiness.
• Guide engineering decisions for EKS, AKS, GKE, Rancher, Spectro Cloud, or equivalent enterprise Kubernetes platforms.
• Act as a senior technical escalation point for Kubernetes platform design, operations, automation, and incident resolution.

Advanced Kubernetes Operations

• Lead troubleshooting of complex Kubernetes failures involving control plane behavior, node health, CNI issues, ingress, storage, certificates, DNS, workload scheduling, resource pressure, and cluster degradation.
• Drive root cause analysis and permanent corrective actions for recurring platform issues.
• Establish operational runbooks, health checks, upgrade playbooks, and incident response practices for Kubernetes environments.
• Improve platform reliability through proactive monitoring, capacity analysis, error reduction, and operational standardization.
• Participate in production support for mission-critical managed services and SaaS workloads.

Automation, GitOps, and Infrastructure as Code

• Lead development of reusable automation using Terraform, Helm, GitOps, CI/CD pipelines, and scripting languages such as Python, Bash, or Go.
• Define implementation-level standards for Terraform modules, Helm charts, Kubernetes manifests, deployment pipelines, and configuration management.
• Drive GitOps-based delivery using tools such as Argo CD, Flux, or equivalent platforms.
• Reduce manual operational work through repeatable, tested, version-controlled automation.
• Ensure platform changes are reviewed, validated, documented, and deployed through controlled engineering practices.

Security and Platform Governance

• Implement Kubernetes security controls including RBAC, namespace strategy, network policies, secrets management, workload isolation, admission controls, and secure image practices.
• Partner with security teams to ensure Kubernetes platforms meet enterprise security, compliance, and audit requirements.
• Support certificate lifecycle management, registry controls, vulnerability remediation, identity integration, and least-privilege access models.
• Help enforce platform guardrails that enable application teams while protecting production environments.

Reliability, Observability, and SRE Partnership

• Lead implementation and improvement of observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Fluent Bit, CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, or equivalent solutions.
• Create dashboards, alerts, service health views, and platform-level indicators that improve operational visibility.
• Partner with SRE teams to define service level indicators, service level objectives, reliability practices, and incident review processes.
• Support capacity planning, performance tuning, backup and recovery practices, and disaster recovery readiness for Kubernetes platforms.

Technical Leadership and Mentorship

• Mentor Kubernetes Engineers and Senior Kubernetes Engineers through design reviews, implementation guidance, code reviews, incident reviews, and operational coaching.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to application, platform, infrastructure, security, and operations teams.
• Create and maintain high-quality technical documentation, implementation guides, runbooks, and internal enablement materials.
• Influence platform engineering practices across teams without relying on formal people-management authority.

Required Experience and Qualifications

• Eight to twelve or more years of experience in infrastructure, cloud, DevOps, platform engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering roles.
• Five or more years of hands-on Kubernetes experience in production environments supporting business-critical workloads.
• Proven experience leading complex Kubernetes implementation work across multiple environments, teams, or platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with at least one major cloud platform such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud; multi-cloud or hybrid experience preferred.
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes operations, scheduling, networking, ingress, storage, security, observability, and lifecycle management.
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation using Terraform, Helm, GitOps, and CI/CD systems.
• Strong Linux, container runtime, networking, DNS, TLS/certificate, and troubleshooting skills.
• Experience supporting production incidents, performing root cause analysis, and implementing permanent corrective actions.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, lead technical workstreams, and influence standards across teams.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex platform issues to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• Experience with Spectro Cloud, Rancher, EKS, AKS, GKE, or other enterprise Kubernetes management platforms.
• Experience with Argo CD, Flux, or mature GitOps operating models.
• Experience with service mesh technologies such as Istio, Linkerd, Cilium, or equivalent platforms.
• Experience with Kubernetes backup and recovery tools such as Velero, Kasten, Stash, or equivalent solutions.
• Experience with container security, image scanning, policy-as-code, admission controllers, runtime security, or supply chain security.
• Experience in regulated, healthcare, financial services, or compliance-driven environments.
• Experience supporting application modernization, microservices adoption, or developer platform enablement.
• Familiarity with emerging container and virtualization platforms such as KubeVirt, Incus, or related technologies.

Preferred Certifications

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator
• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
• HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate
• AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud professional-level certifications
• Linux Foundation or equivalent Linux certification

Impact

As a Principal Kubernetes Engineer, you will help turn Kubernetes architecture and strategy into reliable, secure, automated production platforms. Your work will raise the engineering standard for Kubernetes operations, reduce platform risk, improve reliability, and help InterSystems scale mission-critical managed services and SaaS offerings.