Kubernetes Platform Engineer

XCEL Engineering, Inc. is an award-winning small business providing trusted information technology, engineering, consulting, and project management solutions and services to federal agencies and organizations. Founded in 1971 by professional engineers at the University of Tennessee, XCEL was acquired in 2003 by U.S. Army and Navy veterans and in 2023 became a MartinFed company. XCEL Engineering is part of IT Lab Partners (ITLP), created to support a leading research facility in the East Tennessee region in recruiting top technical talent.

About the Role

As a Platform Engineer, you will implement and maintain the infrastructure underpinning our on-premises Kubernetes clusters, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and maintainability. You will lead the technical direction of our platform engineering initiatives, evaluate and integrate key technologies, and deliver a robust internal platform that powers development across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Manage the full lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters (on-premises K3s/RKE2, GKE, and EKS), including upgrades, security patching, scaling, and capacity planning.
• Troubleshoot cluster-level issues including control plane problems, node failures, and resource constraints.
• Implement and maintain cluster security hardening based on CIS benchmarks and organizational security policies.
• Manage etcd cluster health, backup procedures, and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Monitor cluster performance and optimize resource utilization across multi-tenant workloads.
• Coordinate with datacenter operations team for physical infrastructure changes and maintenance windows.
• Implement, configure, and maintain Cilium CNI across on-premises and cloud Kubernetes environments.
• Design and enforce network policies to achieve secure multi-tenant isolation.
• Troubleshoot complex pod networking issues including DNS resolution, service discovery, and connectivity problems.
• Configure and maintain BGP peering with physical network infrastructure for on-premises integration.
• Work with network engineering team on firewall rules, VLANs, IPv6 networking, and network architecture.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in computer science or closely related field and a minimum of 8 years as a Platforms engineer. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
• At least 5 years of Kubernetes experience.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Department of Energy "Q" clearance (requires US Citizenship).
• Minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years and a Master's degree; or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated experience administering Kubernetes on on-premises infrastructure (K3s, RKE2, or similar bare-metal distributions).
• Experience with cloud-managed Kubernetes (GKE and/or EKS).
• Strong understanding of Linux networking fundamentals: iptables/nftables, routing tables, DNS, TCP/IP stack, network troubleshooting.
• Experience with GitOps methodologies and tools such as ArgoCD or Flux.
• Proficiency in scripting and automation: Bash, Python, Go.
• Cilium CNI or equivalent production experience.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and communicate technical concepts clearly.
• Understanding of Kubernetes security best practices including Pod Security Standards, RBAC, and secrets management.
• GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and/or AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud platform experience.

Qualifications

• Go programming experience for operator maintenance and platform tooling development.
• CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) or CKS (Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist) certification.
• Background in BGP routing protocols and network engineering concepts.
• IPv6 networking experience.
• Infrastructure as Code experience with Terraform or Ansible.
• Experience with internal developer platform (IDP) tools such as Backstage or similar.
• Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd).
• Excellent understanding of code review and familiarity with GitHub and GitLab workflows.

Physical Requirements

• Inside office environment.
• Working on a computer for long periods of time.
• May involve long periods of sitting at a desk.
• Fast-paced work environment with potential for extreme deadline pressures.