Senior Consultant - OpenShift

About the role

Lead OpenShift engagements for Australian Government customers, from architecture through to production, and leave customer teams able to run the platform themselves.

You will work across Defence, national security, law enforcement, and Commonwealth agency environments, often in accredited, disconnected, or air-gapped settings where the constraints are as interesting as the technology.

This is a hands-on senior role. You will design and build, and you will also mentor customer engineers, shape upcoming engagements with our sales teams, and act as the trusted technical voice in front of senior stakeholders.

What you will do

• Lead Red Hat Consulting engagements end to end, owning the full lifecycle from discovery and architecture through implementation to handover.
• Act as the subject matter expert and trusted advisor for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform at customer sites, translating strategic IT objectives into deliverable technical outcomes.
• Design and implement OpenShift solutions that integrate with existing customer infrastructure, including networking, storage, security, identity management, and enterprise monitoring.
• Deliver into Australian Government security contexts, including disconnected and air-gapped installations, environments assessed to PROTECTED and above, and platforms subject to ISM controls and the Essential Eight.
• Build customer capability through structured mentoring, pairing, workshops, and enablement on containerisation, application onboarding, and platform operations. Capability transfer is a deliverable, not a by-product.
• Develop CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows that give customers consistent, auditable, repeatable application delivery.
• Provide technical leadership and hands-on support for upgrades, troubleshooting, and performance tuning across the platform lifecycle.
• Work with adjacent products in the Red Hat portfolio as engagements require, including OpenShift Virtualisation, Advanced Cluster Management, Advanced Cluster Security, Red Hat Quay, Ansible Automation Platform, and OpenShift AI.
• Produce clear technical documentation, including architecture designs, as-built records, operational runbooks, and reporting pitched appropriately for technical and executive audiences.
• Identify and mitigate delivery risks early, and keep customer and internal stakeholders informed of progress, dependencies, and issues.
• Support engagement shaping and presales on occasion, including scoping discussions, effort estimation, and authoring or reviewing statements of work.
• Coordinate the work of other consultants on larger engagements as team lead, and provide guidance to consultants earlier in their careers.

What you will bring

Essential

• 8+ years in technical consulting, professional services, or platform architecture, including 3+ years running Kubernetes or OpenShift in production.
• Deep hands-on expertise with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, covering installation, configuration, and day-2 operations.
• Strong Kubernetes fundamentals, including workload and networking primitives, RBAC, and the operator pattern.
• Demonstrated experience designing for high availability, scalability, and security, with a track record of resolving critical production issues.
• Solid grounding in infrastructure fundamentals: networking, storage, virtualisation, and Linux systems administration.
• Practical experience with automation and infrastructure as code, and comfort scripting in at least one of Bash, Python, or Go.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to hold the room in front of both engineers and senior executives.
• Australian citizenship, required as a condition of Australian Government security clearance eligibility.
• Active Australian Government security clearance at NV1 or above at commencement.
• Based in Canberra - the role requires regular onsite delivery at customer premises.

Desirable

• Familiarity with the Information Security Manual, the Essential Eight, and IRAP assessment processes.
• Working knowledge of DevOps and GitOps tooling such as Ansible, ArgoCD, Tekton, Jenkins, and GitLab CI.
• Exposure to public cloud platforms, especially where hybrid or connected-to-disconnected patterns are involved.
• Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration, Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), or equivalent evidence of depth. We support consultants to build out the Red Hat certification pathway, including progression toward Red Hat Certified Architect if desired.

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterpriseopen source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40+ countries, our associates work flexibly across work environments, from in-office, to office-flex, to fully remote, depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas, no matter their title or tenure. We're a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative, passionate people ready to contribute their ideas, help solve complex problems, and make an impact.

Inclusion at Red Hat

Red Hat’s culture is built on the open source principles of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion, where the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. When this is realized, it empowers people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and drive innovation. Our aspiration is that everyone experiences this culture with equal opportunity and access, and that all voices are not only heard but also celebrated. We hope you will join our celebration, and we welcome and encourage applicants from all the beautiful dimensions that compose our global village.

Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO)

Red Hat is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We review applications for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law.

Red Hat does not seek or accept unsolicited resumes or CVs from recruitment agencies. We are not responsible for, and will not pay, any fees, commissions, or any other payment related to unsolicited resumes or CVs except as required in a written contract between Red Hat and the recruitment agency or party requesting payment of a fee.

Red Hat supports individuals with disabilities and provides reasonable accommodations to job applicants. If you need assistance completing our online job application, email [email protected]. General inquiries, such as those regarding the status of a job application, will not receive a reply.