| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Information Technology |
| Level | Mid level |
| Reports to | DevOps Manager |
| Direct reports | None |
| Experience | 3 to 6 years in DevOps or Linux administration, with 2 or more years running production Kubernetes |
Kubernetes Engineer job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Kubernetes Engineer
Department: Information Technology
Reports to: DevOps Manager
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Kubernetes Engineer builds and runs the Kubernetes clusters that containerized applications depend on. They set up clusters on EKS, AKS, GKE or on-premise, manage networking, ingress, storage and access, keep clusters upgraded and secure, and help application teams deploy and scale their services. The role sits in the platform or DevOps team of product companies, startups and IT services firms, under the DevOps manager. A good Kubernetes Engineer keeps clusters stable through upgrades and gives developers a platform they can use without filing tickets.
Key responsibilities
- Provision and configure Kubernetes clusters on EKS, AKS, GKE or on-premise through infrastructure as code.
- Set up cluster networking, the CNI plugin, ingress controllers, DNS and a service mesh where required.
- Manage storage classes, persistent volumes and backups of stateful workloads.
- Define namespaces, RBAC, network policies and pod security standards for each team.
- Plan and run cluster version upgrades and node pool rotations without application downtime.
- Set resource requests, limits, autoscaling and quotas, and right-size nodes to control cost.
- Build Helm charts or Kustomize overlays and GitOps pipelines with Argo CD or Flux.
- Monitor cluster health with Prometheus, Grafana and a logging stack, and respond to alerts.
- Troubleshoot scheduling, networking and performance problems raised by application teams.
- Scan container images and enforce admission policies so vulnerable or unapproved images do not run.
Requirements
- B.E., B.Tech or MCA
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
- CKS or CKAD is an advantage
- 3 to 6 years in DevOps or Linux administration, with 2 or more years running production Kubernetes
KRAs and KPIs for a Kubernetes Engineer
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Cluster availability | Control plane and node availability of at least 99.9 percent each month |
| Upgrade currency | Every cluster on a supported version, upgraded at least 60 days before the provider's end-of-support date |
| Resource efficiency | Cluster CPU and memory utilization within the target band, with idle nodes removed weekly |
| Image security | No critical image vulnerability running in production for more than 15 days |
| Developer support | Platform tickets from application teams resolved within 1 working day |
| GitOps coverage | All cluster configuration and workloads deployed through Git, with no manual kubectl changes |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: kubectl and k9s, Helm, Argo CD, Terraform, Prometheus, Grafana and Loki, Trivy or Aqua, Istio or Linkerd.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Senior DevOps Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, Cloud Architect
Interview questions for a Kubernetes Engineer
- A pod is stuck in Pending. List the likely reasons and how you would check each.
- Walk me through upgrading an EKS cluster from one minor version to the next.
- How would you stop one team's workloads from starving another team in a shared cluster?
- Explain how a request from the internet reaches a pod in your cluster.
- How do you back up and restore a stateful application running on Kubernetes?
- What is the difference between requests and limits, and what happens when a pod exceeds its memory limit?
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What does a Kubernetes engineer do?
A Kubernetes engineer builds and operates Kubernetes clusters. They set up clusters, networking, ingress, storage and access controls, run version upgrades, manage autoscaling and resource limits, maintain Helm charts and GitOps pipelines, monitor cluster health and help application teams deploy and troubleshoot their services.
Is CKA certification worth it for a Kubernetes engineer?
For most job seekers in India, yes. The Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam is hands-on, so employers treat it as proof that you can operate a cluster. CKS adds security depth and CKAD suits developer-focused roles. Production experience with upgrades and incidents still carries the most weight.
What is the difference between a Kubernetes engineer and a DevOps engineer?
A DevOps engineer works across CI/CD, infrastructure as code, cloud and monitoring. A Kubernetes engineer specializes in the container platform itself: cluster design, upgrades, networking, security and sharing clusters between teams. Companies with many teams on shared clusters often hire it as a separate role inside the platform team.