Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Oivan Group Oy; Dubai; On-site; AED 300,000 - 520,000; Full time

Job summary

Oivan Group Oy seeks an experienced Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer in the UAE to build, operate and troubleshoot enterprise Kubernetes platforms, including GPU-enabled clusters for AI/ML workloads. You will manage RKE2 clusters, Rancher Manager HA, and CI/CD pipelines while applying GitOps practices.

The role emphasizes strong Linux administration, Terraform/Ansible automation, Istio service mesh, and NVIDIA GPU Operator deployment to support mission-critical workloads onsite in the UAE.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in IT with 3+ years administering Kubernetes in production.
• Strong Kubernetes troubleshooting and investigation skills, including root-cause analysis.
• Hands-on Rancher Manager setup and day-2 operations.
• Experience deploying NVIDIA GPU Operator on RKE2 for GPU workloads.
• Automation with CI/CD and GitOps tools (GitLab CI, Jenkins or GitHub Actions; Fleet, Argo CD or Flux).
• Istio service mesh experience; IaC with Terraform and Ansible.
• Strong Linux administration (SLES/SLE Micro, RHEL or Ubuntu) and networking basics.

Responsibilities

• Install, configure and operate production Kubernetes clusters (primarily RKE2) across on-premise, air-gapped and hybrid environments.
• Set up SUSE Rancher Manager in high availability and manage downstream clusters.
• Automate provisioning with Terraform and Ansible; implement GitOps with Rancher Fleet, Argo CD or Flux.
• Deploy and operate NVIDIA GPU Operator for GPU workloads on RKE2; configure device plugins and monitoring.
• Maintain CI/CD pipelines and workflow automation; ensure secure, scalable deployment processes.
• Harden clusters with CIS benchmarks, network policies and secrets management; perform upgrades with minimal downtime.
• Provide knowledge transfer and training sessions for customers and internal teams.

Skills

Kubernetes administration

Troubleshooting

Rancher Manager

NVIDIA GPU Operator

CI/CD automation

GitOps

Istio

Terraform

Ansible

Linux administration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering or Computer Science

Tools

RKE2

SUSE Rancher

SUSE Virtualization (Harvester)

GitLab CI/Jenkins/GitHub Actions

Helm

Kustomize

Argo CD or Flux

Velero

Job description

What We Need

Oivan is looking for an experienced Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer to join our team in theUAE. You will build, operate and troubleshoot enterprise Kubernetes platformsincluding GPU-enabled clusters for AI/ML workloads. This role requires strong expertise in:

• Hands-on Kubernetes operations, with strong troubleshooting and root-cause investigationskills
• SUSE Rancher Manager setup, operations and multi-cluster management
• NVIDIA GPU Operator deployment and operations on top of RKE2
• Automation through CI/CD pipelines and GitOps-based delivery
• Istio service mesh

Hands-on experience with RKE2, Rancher and SUSE Virtualization is a very strong plus. Candidateswithout it must at least understand what these products are and their core concepts.

What You'll Do

Key Responsibilities

We offer you the unique opportunity to apply and develop your skills with a diverse andgeographically distributed technology team. You will play a key role in building and runningKubernetes platforms that host mission-critical and GPU-accelerated workloads.

The following are the main duties you will do as part of this job:

• Install, configure and operate production Kubernetes clusters, primarily RKE2,across on-premise, air-gapped and hybrid environments
• Set up and operate SUSE Rancher Manager in high availability: installation, upgrades,backup and restore, authentication and RBAC, and provisioning or importing downstreamclusters
• Automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration using Infrastructure as Code(Terraform and Ansible)
• Troubleshoot and investigate platform issues end to end (nodes, pods, CNI networking,DNS, ingress, storage, certificates, etcd and the control plane) and drive root-causeanalysis to closure
• Set up and operate SUSE Rancher Manager in high availability: installation, upgrades,backup and restore, authentication and RBAC, and provisioning or importing downstreamclusters
• Deploy and operate the NVIDIA GPU Operator on RKE2, including driver and containertoolkit configuration for RKE2's embedded containerd, the device plugin, GPU FeatureDiscovery and DCGM monitoring
• Configure GPU sharing (MIG and time-slicing) and support the scheduling and operation ofAI/ML workloads on GPU nodes
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions) for applicationand platform delivery
• Implement GitOps with Rancher Fleet, Argo CD or Flux, keeping Git as the single source oftruth for cluster configuration and deployments
• Package and manage workloads with Helm and Kustomize
• Deploy and operate Istio: traffic management, ingress and egress gateways, mTLS andauthorization policies, and mesh troubleshooting
• Operate SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) to run VM workloads alongside containers and tohost RKE2 guest clusters
• Implement monitoring, logging and alerting with Prometheus, Grafana and RancherMonitoring and Logging
• Harden clusters using CIS benchmarks (including the RKE2 CIS profile), Pod SecurityAdmission, network policies and secrets management
• Plan and execute Kubernetes, RKE2 and Rancher upgrades with minimal downtime
• Design and test backup and disaster recovery, including etcd snapshots, Rancher backupsand workload backup (e.g., Velero)
• Create and maintain runbooks, playbooks and platform documentation
• Conduct knowledge transfer and training sessions for customer and internal teams
• Work closely with customer stakeholders in on-site engagements

What You Have

Qualifications & Skills

Our ideal candidate will fulfill the following requirements:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in IT, with3+ years administering Kubernetes inproduction
• Strong Kubernetes troubleshooting and investigation skills:
  • Systematic debugging with kubectl, events, logs, crictl and node-level tools
  • Diagnosing networking, DNS, storage, scheduling, certificate and control-planeissues
  • Root-cause analysis and clear incident write-ups
• Hands-on experience with Rancher Manager setup and day-2 operations
• Experience deploying and operating the NVIDIA GPU Operator, ideally on RKE2
• Automation with CI/CD and GitOps:
  • GitLab CI, Jenkins or GitHub Actions
  • Fleet, Argo CD or Flux
  • Helm and Kustomize
• Hands-on experience with Istio service mesh
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform and Ansible
• Strong Linux administration (SLES / SLE Micro, RHEL or Ubuntu) and networkingfundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, TLS)
• Monitoring and observability: Prometheus, Grafana and centralized logging
• Strong Bash scripting; Python or Go is a plus
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, or a relatedfield
• Strong experience working in on-premise enterprise environments, including air-gappedsetups
• Ability to work independently in customer-facing roles
• English (advanced); Arabic language skills are a strong advantage

Very strong plus: RKE2, Rancher and SUSE Virtualization

Hands-on production experience with these products will strongly differentiate a candidate.Candidates without it must, at a minimum, be able to explain:

• RKE2:SUSE's security-focused, CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution; server and agentnodes, embedded containerd, etcd, configuration through config.yaml, CIS-hardeneddefaults and air-gapped installation
• Rancher:multi-cluster management; the Rancher Manager (local) cluster versusdownstream clusters, cluster agents, projects and RBAC, Fleet and the app catalog
• SUSE Virtualization (Harvester):hyperconverged infrastructure built on Kubernetes, usingKubeVirt for virtual machines and Longhorn for storage, managed from Rancher

Desirable

• SUSE Security (NeuVector) and SUSE Storage (Longhorn)
• CNI expertise: Canal, Calico or Cilium
• Secrets management: HashiCorp Vault, Sealed Secrets or External Secrets Operator
• Private registries and air-gapped image management (e.g., Harbor)
• AI/ML platform tooling (e.g., Kubeflow, KServe, Ray)
• Other Kubernetes platforms: Red Hat OpenShift, EKS, AKS or GKE

Preferred Certifications

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
• SUSE Rancher certification (Administrator or Deployment Specialist)
• Istio Certified Associate (ICA)
• NVIDIA-Certified Associate: AI Infrastructure and Operations

Role: Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Experience: 5+ years (3+ years hands-on Kubernetes)

Location: Onsite / UAE

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