L4 OpenStack Support- Private Cloud Operations

KniTT; Thiruvananthapuram; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

KniTT is seeking an OpenStack Architect (L4) to own the technical direction and long‑term health of our private cloud platform. You will design scalable, secure infrastructure and mentor engineers, with hands‑on architectural leadership across Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Keystone, Glance, and Heat.

You will drive automation using Ansible and Terraform, lead capacity planning and upgrades, and ensure high availability and disaster recovery across multi‑region deployments.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in infrastructure/cloud engineering with 4+ years OpenStack architecture at scale.
• Proven experience designing, deploying and operating OpenStack services (Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Keystone, Glance, Heat).
• Strong Linux background (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu) and networking knowledge (VXLAN, OVS/OVN, BGP).
• Experience with IaC and automation tooling (Ansible, Terraform).
• Security best practices, HA, DR, and multi-region deployments.

Responsibilities

• Own the end‑to‑end architecture of our OpenStack‑based private cloud across compute, networking, storage, identity, orchestration, and image management.
• Design for scale, high availability, disaster recovery, and multi‑region deployments.
• Define and evolve the platform roadmap with engineering leadership to align infra investments with business needs.
• Lead capacity planning, performance tuning, and cost optimization across resources.
• Drive automation and IaC practices to reduce manual operations and speed deployments.
• Architect and enforce security controls and compliance standards across the stack.
• Own upgrade strategy and plan for OpenStack releases with minimal downtime.
• Design integration points with Kubernetes, monitoring stacks, CMDB/ITSM, and storage backends.
• Mentor engineers and SREs; drive architecture reviews and engineering standards.
• Produce architecture docs, ADRs, runbooks; collaborate on audits and risk assessments.

Skills

OpenStack architecture

Cloud infrastructure

Linux systems

Networking fundamentals

Incident management

Tools

Ansible

Terraform

Kolla-Ansible/TripleO/OpenStack-Ansible

CI/CD pipelines

Prometheus/Grafana/ELK

Job description

Role Overview

We are looking for an OpenStack Architect (L4) to own the technical direction, design, and long-term health of our private cloud platform built on OpenStack. Design scalable, resilient, and secure infrastructure, mentor engineers. The ideal candidate should have strong hands‑on architectural experience, deep technical competency, and a demonstrated track record of designing, implementing, and managing large‑scale infrastructure environments

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end‑to‑end architecture of our OpenStack‑based private cloud, including compute (Nova), networking (Neutron), storage (Cinder, Swift, Ceph), identity (Keystone), orchestration (Heat), and image management (Glance)
• Design for scale, high availability, disaster recovery, and multi‑region/multi‑AZ deployments
• Define and evolve the platform roadmap in partnership with engineering leadership, aligning infrastructure investments with business needs
• Lead capacity planning, performance tuning, and cost‑optimization efforts across compute, storage, and network resources
• Drive automation and Infrastructure-as-Code practices (Ansible, Terraform, Kolla‑Ansible/TripleO, CI/CD pipelines) to reduce manual operations and improve deployment velocity
• Architect and enforce security best practices: network segmentation, RBAC, encryption at rest/in transit, compliance with relevant standards (SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP, etc. as applicable)
• Own upgrade strategy and execution for OpenStack releases with minimal service disruption
• Design integration points between OpenStack and adjacent systems — Kubernetes (via Magnum or external clusters), monitoring/observability stacks, storage backends (Ceph, NetApp, etc.), and CMDB/ITSM tooling
• Serve as the escalation point for complex, platform‑wide incidents; lead root cause analysis and drive systemic fixes
• Mentor and technically guide platform engineers and SREs; conduct architecture reviews and set engineering standards
• Evaluate emerging technologies and vendor solutions, and make build‑vs‑buy recommendations
• Produce architecture documentation, runbooks, and design decision records (ADRs)
• Partner with security, network, and compliance teams on audits and risk assessments

Technical Skills

• 8+ years in infrastructure/cloud engineering, with 4+ years of hands‑on OpenStack architecture and operations at scale
• Deep expertise across core OpenStack services (Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Keystone, Glance, Heat) and at least one deployment toolchain (Kolla‑Ansible, TripleO, OpenStack‑Ansible, or Charmed OpenStack)
• Strong Linux systems background (RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu), including networking (VXLAN, OVS/OVN, BGP), storage (Ceph or equivalent SDS), and virtualization (KVM/QEMU)
• Proven experience designing HA architectures and leading production upgrades with minimal downtime
• Proficiency with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation tooling (Ansible, Terraform, Python scripting)
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals (routing, firewalls, load balancing, SDN concepts)
• Experience with monitoring/observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK, or similar)
• Track record of technical leadership — driving architecture decisions across teams, not just within one

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication
• Customer-focused approach
• Good documentation and reporting practices
• Strong ownership and accountability
• Team collaboration and mentoring skills
• Effective incident management and escalation discipline

Preferred Certifications

• COA – Certified OpenStack Administrator
• RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)
• RHCSA (Red Hat Certified System Administrator)
• LFCS (Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator)
• OpenStack Foundation Certification (Preferred)
• Docker Certified Associate (Preferred)