Senior Container Platform Specialist

UPDATE Foods Co Ⓥ; Abu Dhabi; Remote; AED 300,000 - 540,000; Full time

Job summary

UPDATE Foods Co Ⓥ is seeking an experienced Senior Container Platform Specialist to design, implement, and secure enterprise container platforms for modern applications. The role emphasizes Kubernetes‑driven architecture, platform engineering, and cross‑functional collaboration across IT and business units.

You will lead container runtime and image lifecycle management, orchestration, and platform automation while ensuring resilience, security, and scalable operations in a fully remote,

Qualifications

• Experience with designing container platforms for development, testing, staging, production, and DR.

Responsibilities

• Design enterprise container platforms for development, testing, staging, production, and disaster recovery environments.
• Evaluate architectures based on workload, scalability, security, and operational complexity.
• Develop standardized hosting solutions for on‑prem, public/private/hybrid clouds.
• Assess container technologies (Docker, containerd, Podman, Kubernetes).
• Define standards, deployment patterns, configurations, and operating guidelines.
• Determine compute, memory, storage, networking, and runtime needs for workloads.
• Maintain architecture diagrams and design documentation.
• Recommend platform improvements for resilience and cost efficiency.
• Administer and monitor enterprise container platforms and infrastructure.
• Manage container hosts, runtimes, agents, and orchestration integrations.
• Maintain platform availability and health; perform health checks and maintenance.
• Upgrade runtimes, hosts, and software lifecycle activities.
• Troubleshoot runtime issues, deployment problems, and resource constraints.
• Maintain inventories and support arrangements for container platforms.
• Coordinate with vendors and MSPs to resolve complex issues.
• Develop SOPs for platform administration and recovery.
• Configure runtimes and ensure security patches.
• Manage image lifecycles and registry operations.
• Coordinate with cross‑functional teams for compatibility.

Skills

Kubernetes

Docker

Containerd

Podman

Automation

Architecture

Security

Troubleshooting

Tools

Docker Engine

Job description

We’re Hiring: Senior Container Platform Specialist

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a construction-focused organization committed to delivering complex projects through operational excellence, technology-driven innovation, secure digital infrastructure, and collaborative project delivery. Our distributed teams work across Project Management, Construction, Engineering, Procurement, Commercial, Legal, Finance, Human Resources, Design, Quality, HSE, Consultants, Contractors, Suppliers, Logistics, Administration, Information Technology, and Executive Leadership to support efficient operations and reliable access to business-critical systems.

We recognize that modern container platforms are essential to application modernization, digital transformation, infrastructure scalability, and operational resilience. Through standardized container technologies, automation, secure platform engineering, and continuous improvement, we aim to provide dependable technology services that support enterprise applications, engineering systems, construction project workflows, and cross-functional business operations.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Container Platform Specialist to design, implement, administer, secure, and optimize enterprise container platforms supporting modern application deployment and operations.

Key Responsibilities1. Container Platform Architecture and Design

• Design, implement, and maintain enterprise container platforms for development, testing, staging, production, and disaster recovery environments.
• Evaluate container platform architectures based on application requirements, workload characteristics, scalability, availability, security, and operational complexity.
• Develop standardized container hosting solutions for on-premises infrastructure, public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid environments.
• Assess container platform technologies, including Docker-compatible tooling, containerd, Podman, Kubernetes, and managed container services.
• Define platform architecture standards, deployment patterns, configuration baselines, and operational guidelines.
• Determine compute, memory, storage, networking, and runtime requirements for containerized workloads.
• Design appropriate isolation boundaries between applications, teams, environments, and business units.
• Identify architectural risks, single points of failure, platform dependencies, and opportunities for consolidation.
• Support the modernization of traditional applications into containerized deployment models where appropriate.
• Maintain architecture diagrams, platform specifications, dependency maps, and technical design documentation.
• Recommend platform enhancements that improve maintainability, resilience, scalability, and cost efficiency.

Key Responsibilities2. Container Platform Administration and Operations

• Administer, configure, monitor, and maintain enterprise container platforms and associated infrastructure components.
• Manage container hosts, runtime services, platform agents, supporting services, and orchestration integrations.
• Maintain platform availability, service health, configuration consistency, and operational readiness.
• Provision and configure container environments according to approved technical standards.
• Perform routine health checks, preventive maintenance, configuration reviews, and platform diagnostics.
• Manage platform upgrades, runtime updates, host maintenance, and software lifecycle activities.
• Monitor platform alerts, service failures, resource pressure, and infrastructure dependencies.
• Troubleshoot container startup failures, runtime errors, deployment issues, resource exhaustion, and host-level problems.
• Maintain inventories of container hosts, platform components, software versions, licenses, and support arrangements.
• Coordinate with infrastructure vendors and managed service providers to resolve complex technical issues.
• Develop standard operating procedures for platform administration, maintenance, and service recovery.

Key Responsibilities3. Container Runtime and Engine Management

• Configure and maintain container runtimes such as containerd, CRI-O, Docker Engine, or other approved technologies, depending on the platform architecture.
• Manage runtime configuration, container lifecycle operations, runtime security settings, and host-level dependencies.
• Troubleshoot runtime failures, container creation errors, image extraction problems, and process isolation issues.
• Validate runtime compatibility with orchestration platforms, operating systems, container images, and application requirements.
• Manage runtime upgrades and security patches in accordance with approved maintenance procedures.
• Investigate container process failures, resource constraints, filesystem issues, and runtime performance degradation.
• Establish consistent runtime configurations across supported environments.
• Evaluate runtime features and improvements that enhance security, performance, compatibility, and operational efficiency.
• Document runtime dependencies, configuration standards, troubleshooting procedures, and supported versions.
• Coordinate with Systems Administration and Platform Engineering teams to maintain compatible host and runtime configurations.

Key Responsibilities4. Container Image Development and Lifecycle Management

• Establish and maintain standardized processes for container image creation, validation, promotion, distribution, and retirement.
• Support the development and maintenance of approved base images for enterprise applications.
• Encourage the use of minimal, trusted, and appropriately maintained container images.
• Define image tagging, versioning, immutability, naming, and retention standards.
• Manage image lifecycle policies to remove obsolete, unsupported, redundant, or unauthorized images.
• Implement automated image scanning and validation within approved build and deployment workflows.
• Identify vulnerable operating system packages, outdated dependencies, exposed secrets, and insecure image configurations.
• Coordinate remediation with development and cybersecurity teams before affected images are deployed.
• Support image signing, provenance verification, and software supply chain integrity controls where available.
• Troubleshoot image build failures, registry access issues, distribution problems, and compatibility errors.
• Maintain traceability between source code, build pipelines, container images, and deployed workloads.

Key Responsibilities5. Container Registry Administration

• Administer and maintain private container registries and integrations with approved external registries.
• Configure registry authentication, authorization, repository permissions, and secure image access.
• Manage registry availability, capacity, replication, retention policies, and operational monitoring.
• Establish controls governing image publishing, approval, promotion, and production deployment.
• Integrate registries with CI/CD pipelines, orchestration platforms, and automated security scanning tools.
• Monitor registry performance, storage consumption, synchronization status, and service health.
• Troubleshoot image pull failures, authentication errors, certificate issues, network connectivity problems, and registry service interruptions.
• Implement appropriate network restrictions and access controls for registry endpoints.
• Support registry backup, recovery, migration, and platform upgrade activities.
• Maintain registry inventories, configuration documentation, operational procedures, and access records.

Key Responsibilities6. Container Orchestration and Workload Management

• Support the deployment and operation of containerized workloads using Kubernetes or other approved orchestration platforms.
• Configure and maintain workload definitions, deployment specifications, resource allocation settings, and service dependencies.
• Manage application replicas, health checks, restart policies, scheduling requirements, and workload placement rules.
• Support horizontal scaling, workload distribution, rolling updates, and controlled application releases.
• Troubleshoot failed deployments, unhealthy containers, scheduling problems, image pull errors, and application startup issues.
• Establish standardized workload templates and reusable deployment configurations.
• Support both stateless and stateful applications with appropriate availability and data protection arrangements.
• Coordinate with application owners to validate container configurations and runtime requirements.
• Implement resource requests, limits, and workload isolation controls appropriate to application criticality.
• Maintain consistency between development, testing, staging, and production deployment environments.
• Ensure orchestration configurations follow approved security, reliability, and operational standards.