Principal Linux Engineer w/ Kubernetes

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Principal Linux Platform Engineer

SALARY: Chicago: $160 - $180Kk plus 17.5% bonus

LOCATIONS: CHICAGO, IL/KANSAS CITY, MO/ OVERLAND PARK, KS /NY, NY

Hybrid, 2 days onsite and 3 days remote

Looking for a candidate with 10 years Linux Systems Engineering and is deep in Kubernetes, IaC, Terraform on prem and AWS Google Cloud Platform Cloud. Ansible. Financial or high performance real time experience

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal Linux Platform Engineer to lead the design, automation, and scalability of our global infrastructure that powers mission-critical financial applications. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in Linux systems, Kubernetes orchestration, and modern development practices, and thrives in high-performance, regulated environments.

As a senior technical leader, you will set architectural standards, mentor engineers, and drive platform reliability, observability, and security across hybrid cloud and on-prem environments.

The ideal candidate has:

10+ years of professional experience in Linux systems engineering, ideally Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or derivatives.

5+ years of experience architecting and operating enterprise-grade Kubernetes platforms, capable of influencing technical direction, setting engineering standards, and serving as the technical authority for our Kubernetes strategy; must have hands-on experience deploying and managing clusters in bare-metal and on-premises environments (self-managed or cloud-native distributions such as EKS, GKE, or OpenShift).

Strong proficiency with Python or Go for automation, tooling, and integration with APIs.

Deep understanding of networking (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing) and security fundamentals (RBAC, TLS, secrets management).

Expertise with CI/CD tooling (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Tekton, etc.) and artifact lifecycle management (Harbor, Pulp, or Artifactory).

Proven experience with IaC (Terraform and Ansible/SaltStack).

Familiarity with container image lifecycle management, base image hardening, and SBOM compliance.

Exposure to on-prem and hybrid cloud environments (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or private cloud).