Senior Azure Kubernetes Engineer

Senior AKS & Kubernetes Engineer:

Kansoft is seeking an experienced Senior AKS & Kubernetes Engineer to lead the deployment, automation, and operational management of containerized applications on Microsoft Azure. This role will be responsible for designing and implementing secure, scalable, and repeatable Kubernetes platforms while ensuring compliance with enterprise cloud governance, security standards, and operational best practices.

The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on expertise in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Kubernetes administration, Azure DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, cloud security, and platform automation.

Key Responsibilities:

Kubernetes & AKS Platform Engineering:

- Design, deploy, and manage production-grade Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters across Development, Test, and Production environments.

- Implement and manage containerized application deployments using Kubernetes manifests, Helm Charts, and deployment automation frameworks.

- Manage AKS cluster lifecycle activities including node pool administration, auto-scaling, upgrades, patching, and performance optimization.

- Configure and maintain Kubernetes networking, ingress controllers, service discovery, and workload management.

- Implement Kubernetes security controls including RBAC, namespace isolation, network policies, resource quotas, and pod security standards.

- Troubleshoot and resolve complex Kubernetes, container, networking, and platform-related issues.

Azure Cloud Infrastructure & Automation:

- Provision and manage Azure infrastructure required to support AKS deployments, including Virtual Networks (VNets), Network Security Groups (NSGs), Load Balancers, Private Endpoints, Application Gateway, Azure Key Vault, Azure Monitor, and Log Analytics.

- Support private and isolated deployment architectures while ensuring secure connectivity and compliance with enterprise standards.

- Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Bicep, and ARM Templates to automate provisioning and configuration management.

- Develop reusable infrastructure modules and deployment templates to support repeatable environment creation.

DevOps & CI/CD Automation:

- Design and implement Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines for automated application delivery and platform deployments.

- Build and maintain deployment pipelines supporting Dev, Test, and Production environments with appropriate approvals and governance controls.

- Integrate automated validation, testing, security checks, and deployment workflows into release processes.

- Promote DevOps best practices and deployment standardization across engineering teams.

Security, Governance & Compliance:

- Implement cloud security controls aligned with enterprise governance and compliance requirements.

- Automate RBAC assignments, Managed Identities, Service Principals, and access management processes.

- Ensure AKS and Azure resources comply with organizational security standards and architecture guidelines.

- Participate in security reviews, governance assessments, and compliance audits.

- Support implementation of secure deployment practices and policy-driven cloud operations.

Monitoring, Reliability & Operational Excellence:

- Implement end-to-end observability using Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics, Prometheus, and Grafana.

- Configure proactive monitoring, alerting, health checks, and operational dashboards.

- Participate in incident management, production support, and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) activities.

- Develop operational runbooks, deployment guides, and support documentation.

- Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Key Deliverables:

- Fully automated and repeatable AKS environment deployments.

- Secure and governed Dev, Test, and Production deployment pipelines.

- Automated Infrastructure as Code solutions for Azure and Kubernetes platforms.

- Integrated monitoring, security, compliance, and operational automation.

- Comprehensive technical, deployment, and operational documentation.

- Highly available, scalable, and production-ready Kubernetes environments.

Required Skills & Experience:

- 6 - 10 years of experience in Kubernetes, Cloud Infrastructure, DevOps, Platform Engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).

- Strong hands-on expertise in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Kubernetes administration.

- Deep understanding of containerized architectures, Kubernetes networking, ingress controllers, service discovery, and workload orchestration.

- Experience deploying and managing enterprise-scale Kubernetes environments.

- Strong experience with Azure DevOps including Repos, Pipelines, YAML-based deployments, and release automation.

- Proven expertise in Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Bicep, and/or ARM Templates.

- Strong Azure cloud administration experience including networking, security, identity management, and monitoring services.

- Experience implementing RBAC, Managed Identities, Azure AD/Entra ID integrations, and Kubernetes security best practices.

- Knowledge of private networking architectures and secure cloud deployment models.

- Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Prometheus, Grafana, and Application Insights.

- Strong troubleshooting, automation, and problem-solving skills.

- Excellent communication and stakeholder management capabilities with the ability to collaborate across development, infrastructure, security, and architecture teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

- AZ-104 - Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate.

- AZ-305 - Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

- AZ-400 - Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert.

- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and/or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD).

- Experience with GitOps tools such as ArgoCD or Flux.

- Familiarity with Azure Policy, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and enterprise governance frameworks.

- Experience supporting multi-cluster Kubernetes environments and large-scale cloud platforms.

Skills

DevOps, Kubernetes, Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service, Terraform, CI/CD, Cloud Infrastructure, CI/CD Pipeline, Site Reliability