Kubernetes​/Cloud Architect

SEA CORP

Location:

Manassas, VA
Req

SEACORP is seeking a well‑qualified Kubernetes / Cloud Architect
.

Job Summary:

SEACORP is seeking a Kubernetes / Cloud Architect to lead the design, standardization, and evolution of an enterprise cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) built on Kubernetes and related cloud‑native infrastructure technologies. This position supports the SWFTS Common Infrastructure Services (CIS) program. The role defines architecture patterns and operational standards for a resilient, secure, scalable, and highly automated platform that enables application teams to deploy and operate workloads consistently across enterprise environments.

The architect owns the target‑state platform designs spanning container runtime, orchestration, networking, storage, observability, service mesh, high availability, security, and platform automation. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Kubernetes and enterprise platform engineering, along with the ability to guide implementation teams and align technical direction with business and operational goals.

• Lead the architecture and technical strategy for an enterprise Kubernetes‑based PaaS supporting multi‑team and multi‑environment deployments.
• Define and document reference architectures for platform components including RKE2, CRI‑O, Istio, Prometheus, Grafana, Fluentd, Canal, Multus, Flannel, Calico, KubeVIP, DRBD, Ceph, Helm, Ansible, Kustomize, and Kubernetes manifests.
• Design highly available, resilient, and secure Kubernetes clusters for production enterprise workloads. Establish standards for cluster provisioning, node lifecycle management, upgrades, patching, backup, and disaster recovery.
• Architect platform networking patterns including ingress/egress, IP management, multi‑homing, overlay networking, policy enforcement, and network segmentation.
• Design persistent storage patterns for stateful workloads using technologies such as Ceph, DRBD, and Kubernetes storage abstractions. Define service mesh architecture and workload communication standards using Istio, including traffic management, mTLS, observability, and policy enforcement.
• Establish observability standards using Prometheus, Grafana, and Fluentd for metrics, dashboards, logging, alerting, and operational insights.
• Design secure platform patterns for identity, secrets management, policy controls, workload isolation, admission controls, and supply chain security.
• Define Git Ops and configuration management approaches using Helm, Kustomize, Ansible, and declarative manifests. Develop multi‑cluster and multi‑environment strategies for development, test, staging, and production environments. Execute tenancy, namespace design, RBAC, quotas, and self‑service capabilities.
• Produce architecture diagrams, standards, runbooks, and decision records. Review platform and application designs for compliance with architecture principles, operational standards, and security requirements.
• Mentor platform engineers and help mature platform engineering practices, reliability engineering, and automation discipline.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field.

• 7+ years of experience in infrastructure architecture, cloud architecture, platform engineering, or systems engineering.
• 3+ years of experience designing and operating enterprise Kubernetes platforms in production.
• Deep hands‑on experience with Kubernetes architecture, including control plane components, worker node design, scheduling, networking, storage, and security.
• Experience with enterprise Kubernetes distributions such as RKE2 or similar production‑grade platforms. Experience with container runtimes such as CRI‑O and strong understanding of container lifecycle and node‑level operations.
• Strong experience with Kubernetes networking technologies including Canal, Flannel, Calico, Multus, load balancing, and virtual IP approaches such as KubeVIP.
• Strong experience architecting persistent storage for Kubernetes, including Ceph. Experience implementing observability stacks using Prometheus, Grafana, and Fluentd or comparable tools. Experience…