Pega System Administrator

The Pega System Administrator is responsible for administering, supporting and operating Pega Platform 25.x in a client-managed, containerised Azure Kubernetes Service environment. The role provides hands-on platform administration, Helm-based deployment support, AKS runtime operations, secure configuration management, external service integration, production observability, performance tuning, incident diagnosis, patching and upgrade support across DEV, TEST, UAT and PROD environments.

The role requires strong capability across Pega platform configuration, Kubernetes orchestration, Azure networking and ingress, secrets and certificate management, SRS, Kafka, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and related external service dependencies.

Key Accountabilities and main responsibilities

Strategic Focus

• Maintain and support a secure, scalable and highly available Pega Platform 25.x architecture on Azure Kubernetes Service.
• Contribute to platform strategy for operating Pega as Kubernetes pods, services, ingress, config maps and tiered workloads.
• Support correct workload segregation across WebUser, Background Processing, Search, BIX, ADM, Batch, RealTime, RTDG, Custom1 and Custom2 node types.
• Ensure Pega platform strategy appropriately accounts for required external services such as Kafka, SRS and Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, with Cassandra where decisioning workloads require it.
• Support high availability, scalability, controlled rollout, rollback and release readiness for Pega workloads

Operational Management

• Administer Pega Platform 25.x environments, including configuration, startup validation, node health and release readiness.
• Maintain and update Helm chart configuration including values.yaml, provider settings, deployment actions, tier definitions, JDBC parameters, image references, image pull secrets and security context settings.
• Troubleshoot pod restarts, failed rollouts, crash loops, failed mounts, container startup issues, readiness/liveness probes, services, namespaces, secrets and config maps.
• Operate and troubleshoot Kafka, SRS, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch and, where applicable, Cassandra dependencies.
• Manage and troubleshoot tiered workloads across web, batch, analytics, dataflow, search and decisioning-related node types.
• Support relational database connectivity, split-schema architecture, JDBC configuration, driver compatibility and connectivity troubleshooting.
• Use PDC or equivalent observability tools, Pega logs, alert logs and AKS events to triage incidents and identify root cause.
• Support install, deploy, upgrade, upgrade-deploy, patching, rollback and controlled release activities.

People Leadership

• Collaborate with application, platform, infrastructure, security, architecture and vendor teams to resolve platform incidents.
• Work with teams during incidents, releases, upgrades and operational changes.
• Create or review runbooks, platform SOPs, DR procedures and post-incident RCA documents.
• Help development and infrastructure teams understand platform constraints, node tier behaviour and operational dependencies.

Governance & Risk

• Manage secure configuration using Kubernetes secrets, Azure Key Vault CSI Provider, managed identity/workload identity, certificates and TLS/mTLS.
• Support FIPS-oriented configurations, security context settings, private registry controls and secure image handling.
• Support controlled deployments, patching, upgrades, rollback and configuration governance.
• Ensure platform issues are diagnosed across Pega, AKS, ingress, certificates, secrets, service endpoints and backing services.
• Support incident, problem, change, patching and release activities in enterprise production environments.

The above list of key accountabilities is not an exhaustive list and may change from time-to-time based on business needs.

Experience & Personal Attributes

Experience

• 5+ years’ experience in Pega platform or system administration, preferably with recent Pega Infinity / Pega Platform 25.x exposure.
• Hands-on experience administering Pega on Kubernetes, ideally AKS.
• Experience with Helm-based deployment, upgrade, patching and rollback operations.
• Strong understanding of Pega node types and tiered workload segregation.
• Deep operational experience with pods, services, ingress, config maps, secrets, namespaces, health probes, rollouts and certificate troubleshooting.
• Experience supporting SRS and Elasticsearch/OpenSearch including authentication and TLS configuration.
• Experience supporting external Kafka connectivity and compatibility in Pega streaming environments.
• Experience with Azure Key Vault CSI Provider, managed identity, Kubernetes secrets or equivalent enterprise secret management.
• Experience across incident, problem, change, patching and release activities in enterprise environments.
• Experience with ADM, RTDG, Batch, RealTime, Cassandra, AKS ingress modernisation, Gateway API, Application Gateway for Containers, FIPS, runbooks, DR and RCA documentation.

Personal Attributes

• Hands-on, technically strong and comfortable operating complex production platforms.
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting mindset.
• Calm and structured under production pressure.
• Able to work across Pega, Kubernetes, Azure, networking, certificates, security and external services.
• Strong ownership mindset and attention to operational discipline.
• Clear communicator with ability to document runbooks, SOPs and RCA material.