Technical Architect (DevOps)

The core responsibilities for the job include the following:

Architecture and Strategy:

• Define enterprise DevOps architecture and technology roadmap (3-5 years).
• Design multi-cluster, multi-region, multi-tenant Kubernetes infrastructure.
• Create reference architectures and establish architectural governance.
• Lead technology evaluation and strategic tool selection.
• Architect disaster recovery (RPO/RTO), high availability, and scalability strategies.
• Drive platform engineering and Internal Developer Platform (IDP) initiatives.
• Design zero-trust security and compliance architectures (ISO 27001 SOC 2 GDPR).

Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical guidance to multiple DevOps teams.
• Lead architectural review boards and design discussions.
• Mentor DevOps Leads and Senior Engineers.
• Drive POCs for emerging technologies and innovation.
• Establish a DevOps centre of excellence and best practices.
• Make critical technology decisions for the organisation.

Infrastructure and Platform Design:

• Architect enterprise-scale Kubernetes on bare metal/on-premise (multi-data centre).
• Design service mesh architecture (Istio, Linkerd, Cilium).
• Build observability platforms (Prometheus/Loki, Grafana, EFK/PLG, Jaeger).
• Establish CI/CD architecture for enterprise workflows (GitLab, ArgoCD, Jenkins).
• Design storage strategies (Rook-Ceph, OpenEBS, Portworx).
• Implement network architecture (CNI, load balancing, API gateways, and APISIX).
• Create developer self-service platforms and golden paths.

Security and Compliance:

• Design zero-trust security frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with ISO 27001 SOC 2 GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS.
• Establish secrets management and policy-as-code (Vault, OPA/Kyverno).
• Lead security assessments and vulnerability management.

Operational Excellence:

• Define SLI/SLO/SLA frameworks and SRE practices.
• Establish incident management and capacity planning.
• Drive cost optimisation and FinOps strategies.
• Create DevOps metrics and executive dashboards.

Stakeholder Management:

• Present technical roadmaps to C-level executives and board.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and business teams.
• Represent the organisation at industry conferences.
• Engage with open-source communities.

Requirements:

• 10-12 years in DevOps/infrastructure/platform engineering.
• 5+ years in architecture and design roles.
• 3+ years managing/influencing multiple teams (15-30 engineers).
• Proven track record of large-scale infrastructure transformations.
• Kubernetes and Cloud Native (Expert Level).
• 7+ years' Kubernetes experience.
• 5+ years architecting enterprise-scale on-premise clusters.

Deep expertise:

• Multi-cluster federation, multi-tenancy, governance.
• Kubernetes operators and CRD development.
• Advanced networking (CNI, service mesh, eBPF).
• Performance tuning and capacity planning.
• Security hardening and compliance.
• Experience with Rancher, Tanzu, and OpenShift.

Architecture (Must Have):

• Enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF preferred).
• Microservices and event-driven architecture.
• High availability and distributed systems design.
• API design and gateway patterns.
• Scalability and performance optimisation.

Core Technologies (Expert Level):

• Platform Engineering: Internal Developer Platforms, Backstage, Crossplane.
• CI/CD: GitLab CI, Jenkins, ArgoCD, Flux, Tekton (enterprise-scale architecture).
• IaC: Advanced Terraform (modules, workspaces), Crossplane, and Ansible.
• Service Mesh: Istio, Linkerd, and Cilium (architecture and implementation).
• Networking: CNI (Cilium/Calico), MetalLB, HAProxy, and API Gateways (Kong, Tyk).
• Observability: Prometheus/Thanos, Grafana, EFK/PLG, Jaeger/Tempo.
• Storage: Rook-Ceph, OpenEBS, Portworx, and Velero.
• Security: Vault, OPA/Kyverno, Falco, Trivy, zero-trust architecture.
• Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, and Redis (operators and StatefulSets).

Security and Compliance (Required):

• Kubernetes security (RBAC, PSS, admission controllers).
• Zero-trust architecture design.
• Compliance frameworks (ISO 27001 SOC 2 GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS).
• Security auditing and penetration testing.

Technical Skills:

• Programming: Advanced Python/Go (operators and automation).
• Linux: Expert-level administration and tuning.
• Documentation: Architecture diagrams (C4 UML, PlantUML).

Nice to Have:

• Certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS (required), TOGAF, RHCA.
• eBPF programming and Cilium expertise.
• Kubernetes operator development (Operator SDK, Kubebuilder).
• Edge computing and IoT platforms.
• AI/ML infrastructure (Kubeflow, MLOps).
• Open-source maintainer or contributor.
• Conference speaker or published author.