Kubernetes Auditor - Cluster Specialist

Mercor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor seeks an engineer to evaluate Kubernetes tasks used to train frontier AI models. You will assess cluster-operations scenarios, manifest correctness, and failure-mode troubleshooting, and provide rubric-based written feedback for continuous improvement.

Responsibilities include reviewing Helm charts, Kubernetes manifests, and incident traces, then delivering concrete, actionable recommendations to improve reliability and performance.

Qualifications

• 3+ years hands-on production Kubernetes experience (EKS/GKE/AKS or self-managed).
• Deep understanding of cluster internals: CNI/DNS/ingress, PV/PVC storage, RBAC, and failure modes.

Responsibilities

• Evaluate the quality, correctness, and production-readiness of Kubernetes tasks used to train and evaluate frontier AI models.
• Provide rubric-based written feedback detailing findings and recommendations.

Skills

Kubernetes

Go

Python

TypeScript

Tools

Helm

Kubernetes tooling

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Evaluate the quality, correctness, and production-readiness of Kubernetes tasks used to train and evaluate a frontier AI lab's models. You'll assess cluster-operations scenarios, manifest correctness, and failure-mode troubleshooting — and provide clear, rubric-based written feedback.

Basic Qualifications

• 3+ years hands‑on production Kubernetes experience (EKS/GKE/AKS or self‑managed)
• Deep understanding of cluster internals: CNI/DNS/ingress, PV/PVC storage, RBAC, and failure modes (CrashLoopBackOff, OOMKilled, scheduling/eviction)
• Experience authoring and reviewing manifests / Helm charts and debugging live cluster incidents
• Proficiency in Go, Python, or TypeScript

Preferred Qualifications

• CKA / CKAD certification
• Service‑mesh, autoscaling, and observability experience (Istio, HPA, Prometheus/Grafana)
• Prior SRE / platform‑engineering or task‑grading experience