Senior Kubernetes (EKS) & Helm Platform Engineer

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Job Title: Senior Kubernetes (EKS) & Helm Platform Engineer

Location

Tysons Corner, VA (Hybrid)

Employment Type

Long-Term Contract / Contract-to-Hire

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled Kubernetes Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Amazon EKS and Helm to support and scale mission-critical cloud-native platforms within a regulated financial services environment.

This role will focus on designing, deploying, and optimizing containerized workloads while ensuring security, compliance, scalability, and operational excellence across enterprise-grade systems.

The ideal candidate brings strong experience in cloud-native architecture, DevOps automation, and platform engineering, with a proven track record in highly regulated industries such as banking, mortgage, or financial services.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and manage Kubernetes clusters on AWS (EKS) for enterprise-scale applications
• Develop and maintain Helm charts for standardized, reusable, and version-controlled application deployments
• Implement secure, compliant, and highly available container orchestration solutions
• Build and optimize CI/CD pipelines for Kubernetes workloads using tools like GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps
• Partner with application, security, and infrastructure teams to enable cloud-native transformation
• Manage cluster lifecycle, upgrades, scaling, and performance tuning
• Implement observability frameworks (logging, monitoring, tracing) using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or Datadog
• Enforce security best practices including RBAC, IAM roles, network policies, and secrets management
• Support infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar tools
• Troubleshoot complex production issues across distributed systems and microservices

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in DevOps / Cloud / Platform Engineering
• 4+ years of hands-on experience with Kubernetes, specifically Amazon EKS
• Strong expertise in Helm (chart development, templating, release management)
• Deep understanding of containerization (Docker) and microservices architecture
• Experience with AWS services (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, ECR, CloudWatch)
• Strong experience with CI/CD tools and GitOps practices
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred)
• Knowledge of networking concepts (ingress controllers, service mesh, load balancing)
• Experience implementing security and compliance controls in regulated environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services, mortgage, or banking environments
• Familiarity with regulatory frameworks (e.g., SOX, PCI-DSS, NIST, FedRAMP)
• Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd)
• Exposure to GitOps tools (ArgoCD, Flux)
• Experience with policy enforcement tools (OPA, Kyverno)
• AWS Certifications (Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer)

Key Competencies

• Strong problem-solving skills in distributed systems and cloud platforms
• Ability to work in highly regulated, security-first environments
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and business stakeholders
• Ownership mindset with a focus on platform reliability and scalability

What Success Looks Like

• Stable, secure, and scalable Kubernetes platform in AWS
• Standardized and reusable Helm-based deployment framework
• Improved deployment velocity through automation and CI/CD
• Strong alignment with enterprise security and compliance requirements