Location: Charlotte, NC

 

Job Description

 

We are seeking a Senior Kubernetes Administrator with deep, hands-on experience in administering and operating Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters in production environments. The ideal candidate will be responsible for designing, deploying, securing, scaling, and troubleshooting AKS clusters, leveraging Azure-native services and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform). This role requires strong operational ownership, an automation mindset, and close collaboration with DevOps, SRE, and application teams.

 

Required Skills & Qualifications(Mandatory)

Strong hands-on experience administering Kubernetes in production.

Deep expertise in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Solid experience with Microsoft Azure (compute, networking, security).

Proven experience with Terraform for infrastructure provisioning.

Strong troubleshooting skills across Kubernetes, networking, and cloud infrastructure.

Experience managing Linux-based systems.

 

Preferred / Nice to Have

 

Experience with CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab).

Knowledge of Helm, Customize, or similar Kubernetes packaging tools.

Exposure to SRE practices and reliability engineering.

Kubernetes certifications (CKA/CKAD) or Azure certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305).

Experience with multi-cluster or hybrid Kubernetes environments.

 

Key Responsibilities

 

Kubernetes & AKS Administration

Administer, operate, and maintain production-grade AKS clusters (single and multi-region).

Perform cluster lifecycle management: provisioning, upgrades, patching, scaling, and decommissioning.

Configure and manage node pools, autoscaling (HPA/Cluster Autoscaler), taints, tolerations, and resource quotas.

Implement and manage Kubernetes networking (Azure CNI, ingress controllers, services, DNS).

Troubleshoot cluster-level and workload-level issues (pods, nodes, networking, storage, performance).

 

Azure Platform Responsibilities

Design and manage AKS integrations with Azure services such as:

Azure Monitor / Log Analytics

Azure Load Balancer / Application Gateway / NGINX Ingress

Azure Key Vault

Azure Storage (Disk, File, Blob)

Azure Container Registry (ACR)

Ensure high availability, resilience, and disaster recovery for Kubernetes workloads.

Manage Azure IAM, RBAC, and managed identities for secure access.

 

Infrastructure as Code & Automation

 

Use Terraform to provision and manage:

AKS clusters

Networking (VNETs, subnets)

Supporting Azure resources

Maintain reusable, modular Terraform code following best practices.

Automate cluster operations and maintenance activities wherever possible.

 

Security & Compliance

 

Implement Kubernetes security best practices:

RBAC, Network Policies, Pod Security Standards

Secrets management (Key Vault integration)

Ensure secure container runtime and image practices.

Support compliance, audit, and governance requirements.

 

Monitoring, Logging & Reliability

 

Set up and manage monitoring, logging, and alerting for AKS and workloads.

Perform capacity planning and cost optimization.

Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, and preventive actions.

 

Collaboration & Leadership

 

Work closely with DevOps, SRE, and application teams to support deployments.

Provide guidance and mentoring to junior engineers.

Contribute to operational documentation, runbooks, and best practices.