Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Location: Washington DC area
End Client - Amtrak 1 US - Local

Job Description:
As a Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer supporting an enterprise Randstad client in the Washington DC area you will serve as a primary technical leader responsible for architecting securing and scaling multi-cloud Kubernetes infrastructure across AWS (EKS) Azure (AKS) and hybrid this role you will own platform capabilities end-to-enddriving GitOps automation via ArgoCD streamlining enterprise CI/CD with GitHub Actions Runner Controller (ARC) and creating seamless developer golden paths through hardened IaC modules and progressive delivery pipelines. Operating in a high-standards enterprise setting you will champion platform reliability write clear Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) enforce robust security controls (RBAC Kyverno/Gatekeeper) and enable cross-functional engineering teams to deliver software safely continuously and efficiently.

Key Responsibilities
Platform Architecture & Multi-Cloud Strategy: Design build and maintain production EKS and AKS platform standards cluster lifecycles cross-cloud networking storage disaster recovery and multi-region portability.
GitOps & CI/CD Engineering: Architect enterprise GitOps deployment patterns using ArgoCD and implement GitHub Actions Runner Controller (ARC) to automate release workflows progressive delivery (canary/blue-green) and fail-forward/rollback mechanisms.
Governance Guardrails & Security: Establish enterprise RBAC Network Policies Pod Security Standards and Kyverno or Gatekeeper policy enforcement; manage secret standards and automate release evidence capture for compliance.
Developer Experience (DX) & Golden Paths: Publish hardened base container images and reusable golden Terraform modules to provide self-service platform capabilities and reduce cognitive load for application developers.
Reliability Observability & Quality Gates: Define SLOs error budgets and central monitoring standards while integrating automated quality gates security scans and pre-production performance/chaos testing into CI/CD pipelines.
Technical Leadership & Collaboration: Own platform capabilities through their full lifecycle mentor engineering teams on modern cloud-native practices and author Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) to clarify design trade-offs.

Experience: 7 years in DevOps SRE or Infrastructure/Platform Engineering with at least 5 years dedicated strictly to Kubernetes platform engineering at scale.
Core Technical Expertise: Deep hands-on experience with Kubernetes AWS EKS Azure AKS ArgoCD GitHub ARC Terraform and GitOps methodologies.
Security & Network Engineering: Proven background configuring cloud networking ingress controllers RBAC network policies and policy-as-code frameworks (Kyverno OPA/Gatekeeper).

Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science Information Technology or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred Certifications & Skills: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) AWS/Azure Cloud Certifications Service Mesh experience (Istio/Linkerd) Backstage IDP and prior background working in highly regulated or enterprise environments.

Required Skills:

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