Staff Site Reliability Engineer

Okta; Bengaluru; Hybrid; INR 4,200,000 - 6,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Okta Inc. is seeking a Staff Site Reliability Engineer for our Bengaluru, India team. You will set architectural direction for our Kubernetes platform, drive reliability and scale, and partner with Staff/Principal engineers across the US and India to maintain a coherent global platform strategy.

You will lead design and rollout of self-service capabilities, host AI-driven internal workflows, and mentor engineers while aligning infrastructure with security and delivery goals.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in Site Reliability or Platform/Infrastructure Engineering with senior leadership ability.
• Deep, hands-on Kubernetes production-scale expertise: architecture, multi-tenancy, networking, security, day-2 ops.
• Experience running large-scale internal platforms in a public cloud, preferably AWS.
• Strong infrastructure-as-code skills with Terraform and modern CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions).
• Proficiency in Python or similar scripting languages; experience with AI/ML workflows is a plus.
• Strong observability capabilities (Grafana, Splunk, APM) and incident-resolution discipline.
• Ability to influence direction across teams and geographies without formal authority.
• CS degree or related field; excellent communication and mentoring skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and evolution of the Bengaluru Kubernetes platform, coordinating with US/India teams.
• Lead design and rollout of self-service platform features and golden paths for internal users.
• Ensure readiness to host AI-driven internal workflows, including model serving and GPU scheduling.
• Own the hardest reliability problems: incidents, capacity, and cross-system failures.
• Participate in follow-the-sun on-call rotations and drive root-cause analyses and postmortems.
• Set SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, and on-call standards; improve SDLC for infrastructure-as-code.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar through reviews and architecture discussions.
• Collaborate with security, product, and architecture teams to align infra with business needs.
• Represent Bengaluru/India in global platform architecture discussions with US teams.

Skills

Kubernetes

Python

Cloud architecture

SRE leadership

Observability

Education

Computer Science degree

Tools

Terraform

GitHub Actions

ArgoCD

Flux

Istio

Linkerd

Job description

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

Okta authenticates, authorizes, and provisions millions of users a day. Internally, TDI Infrastructure Engineering runs the platforms that our own engineering and business teams build on — hosted on AWS, increasingly Kubernetes-native, and expanding fast to support AI-driven internal workflows. We're looking for a Staff SRE to help us evolve Site Reliability Engineering from a traditional operations model into a true Platform as a Service (PaaS) organization.

As a Staff Site Reliability Engineer on our Bengaluru/India team, you will be the senior-most technical voice on the ground - setting architectural direction for our Kubernetes platform, driving the hardest reliability and scaling problems to resolution, and partnering with Staff/Principal engineers on our US and India teams to keep our global platform strategy coherent. You'll report to the Manager, Site Reliability Engineering, and work closely with the rest of the India SRE team, as well as global SRE peers.

What you'll be doing:

• Owning the architecture and evolution of our Kubernetes platform for the Bengaluru/India team - cluster strategy, multi-tenancy, networking, and security posture - in close coordination with counterparts in the US and India
• Leading the technical design and rollout of self-service platform capabilities, golden paths, and self-healing patterns that let internal teams ship and operate workflows without deep platform expertise
• Driving the platform's readiness to host AI-driven internal workflows reliably at scale - model serving, GPU scheduling, and orchestration infrastructure
• Taking ownership of the hardest, highest-ambiguity reliability problems: complex production incidents, capacity and scaling challenges, and cross-system failure modes
• Participating in a follow-the-sun on-call rotation shared with SRE peers in the US and India, and driving root-cause resolution and postmortems for the incidents you own
• Setting technical standards for SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, and on-call practice, and holding the team accountable to them
• Improving SDLC processes for infrastructure-as-code, including CI/CD pipeline maturity and change/release management
• Mentoring engineers across the team and raising the technical bar through design reviews, architecture discussions, and hands-on pairing
• Partnering with architects, security, and product engineering teams to align infrastructure decisions with the business's reliability, security, and delivery needs
• Representing the Bengaluru/India team in global platform architecture discussions, working as a peer with Staff/Principal-level engineers in the US and India

What you’ll bring to the role:

• 8+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, Platform Engineering, or Infrastructure Engineering, with a track record of staff-level technical leadership
• Deep, hands-on expertise in Kubernetes at production scale - architecture, multi-tenancy, networking, security, and day-2 operations
• Experience running large-scale internal infrastructure platforms in a public cloud, preferably AWS
• Strong expertise in cloud-native architectures, infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), and CI/CD pipelines (Github Actions)
• Strong proficiency in Python or similar scripting and programming languages.
• Experience building or operating infrastructure that hosts AI/ML or agentic workflows - model serving, GPU scheduling, or orchestration frameworks
• Deep experience with observability platforms and monitoring tools (Grafana, Splunk, APM, or equivalent) in a large-scale environment
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams and geographies without formal authority
• Effective verbal and written communication skills, with experience mentoring engineers and driving technical alignment across distributed teams
• Computer Science degree or related field, or equivalent experience

Good to have:

• Building internal developer platforms (IDPs) with a “platform as a product” mindset
• Hands-on experience with AI agent orchestration, vector databases, model routing, or inference optimization infrastructure
• Multi-cloud experience (AWS plus Azure or GCP)
• Service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd) or GitOps tooling (ArgoCD, Flux) in production Kubernetes environments
• Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKS, CKAD) or equivalent cloud certifications
• Experience managing or administering an enterprise-scale SCM platform (GitHub, GitLab, or equivalent)

Location:

This role is based in Bengaluru, India. Okta operates a flexible hybrid work model; specific in-office expectations will be discussed during the hiring process. This role requires close, regular collaboration with SRE peers and engineers in the US and India, so some flexibility in working hours should be expected. Okta is committed to complying with applicable data privacy and security laws and regulations. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

The Okta Experience

• Driving Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.
Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.
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