Manager of Kubernetes Operations

KAYAK; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work policy (remote/hybrid)

Team-wide time off

Volunteer Time Off (VTO)

Wellness programs

Employee ERGs (affinity groups)

Career growth opportunities

Job summary

KAYAK seeks a Manager, Kubernetes Operations to lead the container platform team responsible for reliability, scalability, and security of our Kubernetes platform at global scale. You will own the roadmap, drive lifecycle management, and guide incident reviews while partnering with security and engineering teams.

Leadersh ip, deep Kubernetes expertise, and a commitment to inclusive, high-performing teams are essential as you shape the strategy and nurture talent in a fast-moving environment.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of operating large-scale, 24/7 production Kubernetes environments.
• Experience with cluster lifecycle management (upgrades, provisioning, capacity planning).
• Hands-on expertise with RBAC, network policy, and cluster hardening.
• Experience with on-premises and cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS).
• Strong scripting/automation skills (Python/Go/Bash) to support IaC workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of container platform engineers, owning hiring, performance management and career development.
• Own the technical roadmap and operational strategy for the Kubernetes platform across production and non-production environments.
• Drive reliability, scalability, and security of the Kubernetes platform; ensure observability and incident response are blameless.
• Promote infrastructure-as-code and GitOps for cluster config and deployments; reduce manual toil.
• Collaborate with software engineering, security, and infra teams to align platform roadmap with broader goals.
• Coach engineers on Kubernetes best practices and security postures; foster ownership and learning.

Skills

Kubernetes

Observability tooling

Automation scripting

Leadership

Cloud platforms

Infrastructure as code

Communication

People management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

• Our focus is on building the best travel search engine to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.
• KAYAK is seeking a Manager, Kubernetes Operations to lead the team responsible for the reliability, scalability, and security of our container orchestration platform
• In this role, you will combine deep technical expertise with a genuine passion for people leadership — guiding a team of platform engineers while shaping the strategy that keeps our containerized production environment running at global scale
• You will be a key partner to engineering, security, and infrastructure teams, helping KAYAK move faster and more safely by building a platform your colleagues can depend on
• Own the technical roadmap and operational strategy for the Kubernetes platform, ensuring cluster reliability, scalability, and security across production and non-production environments
• Lead a team of container platform engineers, taking full responsibility for hiring, performance management, and career development to build a high-performing, inclusive team
• Deliver a continuously improving container platform by driving cluster lifecycle management — including version upgrades, node provisioning, capacity planning, and workload migration from legacy orchestration platforms
• Coach engineers on Kubernetes best practices, container security, RBAC design, and operational excellence, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous learning
• Collaborate closely with software engineering, security, and infrastructure teams to ensure containerized workloads are reliable, observable, and deployable with confidence
• Drive the adoption of infrastructure-as-code and GitOps practices for cluster configuration and application deployment, reducing manual toil and improving consistency across environments
• Design and enforce standards for Kubernetes observability — including metrics collection, alerting, and dashboarding — so the team can detect and resolve incidents quickly and conduct effective post-incident reviews
• Hold the team to a high standard of operational excellence, including on-call practices, incident response, and blameless post-mortems
• Collaborate with adjacent operations and engineering leaders to align the Kubernetes platform roadmap with broader infrastructure and product engineering goals
• Advance the team’s security posture by partnering with security teams on cluster hardening, network policy enforcement, and compliance requirements

Benefits

• Work flexibly: Our global flexible work policy lets our teams decide if they head into one of our offices or work from anywhere else
• Team-wide time off: Most of our team disconnects at the same time each year to recharge and reconnect
• Global volunteer week: Take VTO (Volunteer Time Off) to support the organizations and charitable efforts you believe in
• Wellness: We take care of each other - providing opportunities and spaces to live that work-life balance
• Resource groups: Our five ERGs are employee-led groups for underrepresented communities and their allies
• Career growth: We provide opportunities for our team to develop their skills – or learn new ones – on their own terms

Qualifications

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate a clear technical vision and work effectively with cross-functional engineering, security, and product teamsProficiency in at least one scripting or automation language (Python, Go, or Bash) to support infrastructure-as-code workflows and reduce operational toil.
• A proven track record of operating large-scale, 24/7 production Kubernetes environments, including cluster lifecycle management (upgrades, node provisioning, capacity planning) and workload migration from legacy container orchestration platforms.
• Solid experience with modern observability tooling — such as Prometheus, Grafana, or equivalent — including alerting, dashboarding, and incident-driven tuning.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Kubernetes — including RBAC design, network policy, cluster hardening, and multi-environment operations spanning on-premises and cloud infrastructure8+ years of experience in SRE, DevOps, or platform/infrastructure engineering, with at least 3 years in an engineering leadership or management role.
• A strong technical foundation in both on premise and cloud infrastructure (GCP and/or AWS) and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• A degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experienceExperience as a people manager with a demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and retain engineering talent, and a commitment to building inclusive, high-performing teams