Container Platform Architect

Randstad Enterprise; United States; On-site; USD 138,000 - 145,000; Full time

Job summary

Randstad Enterprise seeks an Enterprise Managed Container Platform Architect to standardize a secure, scalable container platform across AWS EKS, ECS, and cloud-native tech. Lead architecture, guardrails, and governance with security, DevOps, and app teams to reduce fragmentation and accelerate delivery.

You will drive infrastructure as code, GitOps, and CI/CD patterns, guiding platform adoption, operating model, and cost controls for enterprise-wide success.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience designing, implementing, or governing enterprise container platforms using AWS EKS, AWS ECS, Kubernetes, Docker, or comparable technologies.
• Strong experience with infrastructure as code and automation, including Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, Helm, GitOps, and configuration management.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes architecture, cluster lifecycle management, networking, ingress, DNS, autoscaling, scheduling, storage, secrets, certificates, and workload deployment patterns.
• Experience with container security, vulnerability management, image scanning and signing, trusted registries, admission control, role-based access control, network policies, and software supply-chain security.
• Experience with cloud cost optimization, resource governance, capacity management, showback or chargeback, and operational efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Define the enterprise architecture approach for a managed container platform spanning EKS, ECS, Kubernetes, container registries, platform tooling, and supporting cloud services.
• Create and maintain standards, reference architectures, design patterns, guardrails, and architecture review criteria for secure and reliable container adoption.
• Lead the architectural design of the managed container platform and guide the design through Architecture Review Board review and approval.
• Define an EKS versus ECS placement strategy and help application teams select the appropriate platform for each containerized workload.
• Design standardized EKS clusters using infrastructure as code, reusable Terraform modules, CI/CD pipelines, Helm, and GitOps-based configuration management.
• Define platform patterns for networking, ingress, DNS, identity, role-based access control, secrets management, certificates, image management, autoscaling, and policy enforcement.
• Guide selection and implementation of container management, image registry, backup and disaster recovery, networking, security, policy, monitoring, logging, tracing, and observability tooling.
• Establish architecture and governance controls for vulnerability scanning, image signing, admission control, trusted image sources, network policy, patching, upgrades, and compliance.
• Define patterns for automated platform upgrades, Kubernetes lifecycle management, cluster add-on maintenance, base-image maintenance, and removal of unsupported or extended-support components.
• Create the target operating model and responsibility matrix for platform engineering and application development teams, including shared responsibilities for deployment, scaling, reliability, security, and support.
• Provide hands-on architecture guidance to platform and application teams from strategy and design through implementation, migration, production readiness, and ongoing operations.
• Define observability patterns using metrics, logs, traces, health monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards to improve reliability and incident response.
• Develop resiliency, high-availability, backup, restore, and disaster-recovery standards for clusters, configurations, persistent data, and business-critical workloads.
• Partner with application teams to define containerization requirements, deployment patterns, resource requests and limits, autoscaling, configuration, release strategies, and application-level monitoring.
• Drive cost optimization through cluster right-sizing, autoscaling, resource governance, removal of unused infrastructure, standardized tooling, and cost visibility.
• Facilitate architecture governance discussions and decisions, promoting reuse, automation, consistent controls, clear ownership, and risk-based decision making.
• Communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, risks, dependencies, and recommendations clearly to executive, architecture, engineering, security, operations, and application stakeholders.
• Mentor architects, platform engineers, DevOps engineers, and application teams on enterprise-ready Kubernetes and container design and operating practices.

Skills

AWS EKS

AWS ECS

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

GitOps

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Terraform AWS modules

Argo CD

Helm

Harbor / ECR

Job description

Length of Contract: through 3/31/27 + potential extensions

Hourly Pay: 100-105 p/hr on W2 Only

*W2 Contract Only*

*No 3rd Party Applicants*

Overview

The Enterprise Managed Container Platform Architect will help the organization define, standardize, and mature a secure, resilient, scalable, and cost-effective managed container platform across AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS), and related cloud-native technologies. This role will establish the enterprise architecture, standards, design patterns, guardrails, placement guidance, and operating model needed to reduce platform fragmentation, improve security and compliance, automate platform lifecycle management, and accelerate application delivery.

The architect will partner with enterprise architecture, cloud engineering, platform engineering, security, risk, application development, DevOps, infrastructure, operations, and business-unit technology teams to define clear platform and application responsibilities and ensure containerized solutions are designed and operated consistently.

This is a hands-on architecture leadership role focused on creating an enterprise-ready managed container platform, guiding EKS and ECS adoption, improving automation and observability, strengthening operational ownership, and reducing delivery, security, reliability, and cost risk.

• Enterprise component standards for managed container platforms, including EKS, ECS, container images, registries, cluster add-ons, networking, security, observability, backup, recovery, and lifecycle management.
• Reference architecture for a standardized EKS platform, including infrastructure as code, CI/CD integration, GitOps, networking, ingress, DNS, secrets, certificates, scaling, monitoring, logging, tracing, and baseline platform services.
• EKS and ECS workload placement strategy that defines when each service should be used based on workload complexity, portability, operational requirements, and business needs.
• Approved container base-image strategy, including development and maintenance of a compliant EKS Amazon Machine Image and controls that reduce reliance on untrusted public images.
• Container image registry and software supply-chain design, including image caching, vulnerability scanning, signing, access control, versioning, traceability, and availability protections.
• Platform governance and responsibility model, including a clear RACI for platform engineering, application development, architecture, cloud security, and operations teams.
• Reusable patterns and automation for cluster provisioning, configuration, upgrades, patching, scaling, policy enforcement, and application deployment.
• Architecture selection recommendations for container management, registry, backup and disaster recovery, networking, security, policy, monitoring, and observability capabilities.
• Operational readiness model covering support, service ownership, monitoring, incident response, capacity, cost management, upgrades, patching, backup, recovery, and continuous improvement.
• Executive-ready recommendations, roadmap input, architecture decision records, and ARB materials supporting implementation and adoption of the managed container platform.

What You Will Do

• Define the enterprise architecture approach for a managed container platform spanning EKS, ECS, Kubernetes, container registries, platform tooling, and supporting cloud services.
• Create and maintain standards, reference architectures, design patterns, guardrails, and architecture review criteria for secure and reliable container adoption.
• Lead the architectural design of the managed container platform and guide the design through Architecture Review Board review and approval.
• Define an EKS versus ECS placement strategy and help application teams select the appropriate platform for each containerized workload.
• Design standardized EKS clusters using infrastructure as code, reusable Terraform modules, CI/CD pipelines, Helm, and GitOps-based configuration management.
• Define platform patterns for networking, ingress, DNS, identity, role-based access control, secrets management, certificates, image management, autoscaling, and policy enforcement.
• Guide selection and implementation of container management, image registry, backup and disaster recovery, networking, security, policy, monitoring, logging, tracing, and observability tooling.
• Establish architecture and governance controls for vulnerability scanning, image signing, admission control, trusted image sources, network policy, patching, upgrades, and compliance.
• Define patterns for automated platform upgrades, Kubernetes lifecycle management, cluster add-on maintenance, base-image maintenance, and removal of unsupported or extended-support components.
• Create the target operating model and responsibility matrix for platform engineering and application development teams, including shared responsibilities for deployment, scaling, reliability, security, and support.
• Provide hands-on architecture guidance to platform and application teams from strategy and design through implementation, migration, production readiness, and ongoing operations.
• Define observability patterns using metrics, logs, traces, health monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards to improve reliability and incident response.
• Develop resiliency, high-availability, backup, restore, and disaster-recovery standards for clusters, configurations, persistent data, and business-critical workloads.
• Partner with application teams to define containerization requirements, deployment patterns, resource requests and limits, autoscaling, configuration, release strategies, and application-level monitoring.
• Drive cost optimization through cluster right-sizing, autoscaling, resource governance, removal of unused infrastructure, standardized tooling, and cost visibility.
• Facilitate architecture governance discussions and decisions, promoting reuse, automation, consistent controls, clear ownership, and risk-based decision making.
• Communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, risks, dependencies, and recommendations clearly to executive, architecture, engineering, security, operations, and application stakeholders.
• Mentor architects, platform engineers, DevOps engineers, and application teams on enterprise-ready Kubernetes and container design and operating practices.

What You Will Need

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Eight or more years of experience in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, cloud architecture, platform engineering, DevOps, software engineering, infrastructure engineering, or technology delivery.
• Hands-on experience designing, implementing, or governing enterprise container platforms using AWS EKS, AWS ECS, Kubernetes, Docker, or comparable technologies.
• Experience creating architecture standards, reference architectures, reusable design patterns, platform guardrails, architecture decision records, and review criteria.
• Strong experience with infrastructure as code and automation, including Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, Helm, GitOps, and configuration management.
• Strong understanding of Kubernetes architecture, cluster lifecycle management, networking, ingress, DNS, autoscaling, scheduling, storage, secrets, certificates, and workload deployment patterns.
• Experience with container security, vulnerability management, image scanning and signing, trusted registries, admission control, role-based access control, network policies, and software supply-chain security.
• Experience designing monitoring, logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, health monitoring, and operational support capabilities for cloud-native platforms.
• Experience defining high availability, resiliency, backup, restore, and disaster-recovery strategies for container platforms and stateful workloads.
• Experience with cloud cost optimization, resource governance, capacity management, showback or chargeback, and operational efficiency.
• Experience working within Agile, DevOps, SDLC, architecture governance, technology risk, change management, incident management, and production support practices.
• Strong communication, facilitation, analytical, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to explain complex platform architecture topics to executive, technical, security, operational, and application audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services, insurance, banking, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry.
• AWS certifications related to Solutions Architecture, DevOps Engineering, Security, Advanced Networking, or Kubernetes, or comparable cloud and platform certifications.
• Deep experience with AWS EKS and ECS, including workload placement, cluster upgrades, managed node groups, Fargate, Amazon ECR, IAM integration, load balancing, and cloud-native observability.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform AWS modules, Harness or comparable CI/CD and infrastructure automation platforms, Argo CD, Helm, and GitOps operating models.
• Experience with Cilium or comparable container networking and security platforms, including network policy, load balancing, service connectivity, and traffic observability.
• Experience with Karpenter or comparable autoscaling and cluster-capacity optimization technologies.
• Experience with Rancher, Red Hat OpenShift, Plural, or comparable centralized container-management platforms.
• Experience with Amazon ECR, Harbor, or comparable enterprise container registries, including proxy caching, image replication, signing, scanning, and policy enforcement.
• Experience with Velero or comparable Kubernetes backup, recovery, and migration tools.
• Experience with Kyverno, Open Policy Agent, or comparable policy-as-code and admission-control technologies.
• Experience with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, Filebeat, Logstash, or comparable monitoring, logging, and tracing technologies.
• Experience with enterprise certificate and secrets management platforms, including AWS Secrets Manager, cert-manager, Keyfactor, Vault, or comparable technologies.
• Experience establishing platform engineering product models, internal developer platforms, self-service capabilities, operating models, and communities of practice.