Senior Kubernetes Deployment Consultant

Location: Palo Alto / Remote

Initial Duration: Full-time 40 hours per week for 2 months, if successful would extend

Job Description: Senior Kubernetes Deployment Consultant

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Kubernetes Deployment Consultant to join our team on a contract basis. You will play a pivotal role in strengthening our internal domain

knowledge and increasing confidence during customer engagements. You will serve as the resident expert in complex container orchestration and cloud infrastructure deployments, acting

as a crucial resource to support both our internal IT/Engineering teams and our Sales organization.

Key Responsibilities

Internal Support & Enablement

• Environment Setup: Rapidly design, deploy, and configure complex Kubernetes and OpenStack environments that mirror specific customer setups.
• Proof of Concept (PoC) Development: Build robust PoC environments to validate solutions and test edge cases related to customer deployments.
• Mentorship & Knowledge Transfer: Act as an internal Subject Matter Expert (SME), providing guidance on Kubernetes best practices to internal engineering and IT teams.
• Documentation: Create clear, reproducible documentation for complex deployment topologies.

Sales Support

• Technical Pre-Sales Engagement: Partner directly with the Sales team during key customer interactions to deeply understand their Kubernetes and/or OpenStack

architecture, deployment strategies, and operational challenges. Solution Alignment: Analyze customer requirements and map them effectively to our product's supported capabilities and integration points.

• Technical Objection Handling: Address deep technical questions and concerns from customer architects and DevOps teams regarding deployment, security, and scaling.
• Strategic Advisement: Provide strategic recommendations to customers on best practices for integrating our solutions within their existing infrastructure.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ Years of Hands-on Kubernetes Experience: Extensive, verifiable experience in designing, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting Kubernetes clusters in production

environments (at scale).

• Platform Proficiency: Expert-level experience with Upstream Kubernetes, Redhat OpenShift, EKS, and AKS.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools: Experience writing deployment descriptors in at least one of Terraform, Ansible or AWS CFT.
• Data Protection & Storage Integration: Strong knowledge of storage integration, data protection concepts such as volume snapshots, and backup lifecycle management within

containerized environments.

• Deep Infrastructure Knowledge: Expert-level understanding of underlying infrastructure components (networking, storage, compute) and how they interact with

orchestration layers.

• Customer-Facing Experience: Proven ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to both technical (engineers, architects) and non-technical (sales,

management) audiences.

• Problem-Solving Mindset: Exceptional analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to rapidly dissect complex deployment issues.

Preferred Qualifications

• Additional Kubernetes Distributions: Experience with additional Kubernetes distributions (e.g., Tanzu, Rancher, GKE).
• CI/CD Pipeline Expertise: Proven experience integrating Kubernetes into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., ArgoCD, Flux, Jenkins, GitLab CI).
• Security & Compliance: Deep knowledge of Kubernetes security standards, RBAC, network policies, and compliance frameworks.
• Monitoring & Observability: Proficiency with tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK/EFK stacks.
• Cloud Cost Optimization: Demonstrated ability to optimize cloud spend and manage resources effectively (FinOps).
• Certifications: CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), CKAD, or CKS.
• Pre-Sales Engineering: Prior experience in a pre-sales engineering or technical consulting role.
• Community Contribution: Demonstrated active contribution to the Kubernetes (or closely related CNCF projects) communities is a plus.