Senior Cloud Architect - Kubernetes

Humana Inc; United States; On-site; USD 129,000 - 178,000; Full time

Job summary

Humana Inc. is seeking a Senior Cloud Architect – Kubernetes to lead enterprise Kubernetes platforms across AKS and GKE, with emphasis on scalable, secure, and observable cloud solutions. You will guide architecture, governance, and automation efforts across multiple squads.

Ideal candidates bring 8+ years in cloud infra, strong AKS/GKE experience, IaC with Terraform, GitOps, and robust collaboration skills to drive cross-functional initiatives in a large organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• Equivalent experience will be considered.
• 8+ years of experience in cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, systems engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing, deploying, and supporting Kubernetes-based platforms in enterprise cloud environments.
• Strong experience with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and/or Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
• Hands-on experience with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code methodologies.
• Experience utilizing GitHub for source control, collaboration, CI/CD, and platform engineering workflows.
• Strong understanding of cloud architecture, distributed systems, networking, security, governance, and reliability engineering principles.
• Experience implementing monitoring, observability, logging, and alerting solutions for cloud-native environments.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot complex production issues and drive root cause analysis.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architectural decisions and lead cross-functional initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, support, and enhance Kubernetes platforms across AKS and GKE environments.
• Lead the full lifecycle management of Kubernetes platform services, including planning, implementation, upgrades, enhancements, and retirement strategies.
• Develop and implement platform features that improve scalability, reliability, performance, and developer experience.
• Continuously evaluate emerging cloud-native technologies, tools, and patterns to advance platform capabilities.
• Optimize Kubernetes resource utilization, workload scheduling, and cluster performance to maximize efficiency and cost effectiveness.
• Drive operational excellence initiatives through automation, standardization, and continuous process improvement.
• Design and implement platform security controls, governance standards, policy enforcement, and architectural guardrails.
• Build and maintain observability solutions, dashboards, monitoring, logging, and alerting capabilities to improve platform visibility and reliability.
• Lead capacity planning, forecasting, incident prevention, and resiliency initiatives.
• Partner with engineering, security, infrastructure, and application development teams to deliver scalable platform solutions.
• Provide technical leadership, architectural guidance, and mentorship to engineering teams.
• Champion Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitOps, and cloud-native best practices across the organization.
• Lead vulnerability remediation efforts and maintain Power BI dashboards to track image pull volumes and governance.

Skills

Kubernetes

Cloud architecture

Azure AKS

GKE

Terraform

GitHub

Observability

Cost optimization

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Terraform

GitHub

Argo CD

Flux

Istio

OPA/Kyverno/Gatekeeper

Dynatrace/Prometheus

Job description

Become a part of our caring community Humana is seeking a Senior Cloud Architect – Kubernetes to support and evolve AKS and GKE runtime environments within Humana’s Cloud Platform. This role is responsible for architecting, improving, and governing enterprise Kubernetes platforms to deliver scalable, secure, cost-effective, and highly observable cloud solutions. The ideal candidate will bring strong technical expertise in Kubernetes and cloud-native architecture, along with excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect, design, support, and enhance Kubernetes platforms across Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) environments.
• Lead the full lifecycle management of Kubernetes platform services, including planning, implementation, upgrades, enhancements, and retirement strategies.
• Develop and implement platform features that improve scalability, reliability, performance, and developer experience.
• Continuously evaluate emerging cloud-native technologies, tools, and patterns to advance platform capabilities.
• Optimize Kubernetes resource utilization, workload scheduling, and cluster performance to maximize efficiency and cost effectiveness.
• Drive operational excellence initiatives through automation, standardization, and continuous process improvement.
• Design and implement platform security controls, governance standards, policy enforcement, and architectural guardrails.
• Build and maintain observability solutions, dashboards, monitoring, logging, and alerting capabilities to improve platform visibility and reliability.
• Lead capacity planning, forecasting, incident prevention, and resiliency initiatives.
• Partner with engineering, security, infrastructure, and application development teams to deliver scalable platform solutions.
• Provide technical leadership, architectural guidance, and mentorship to engineering teams.
• Champion Infrastructure as Code (IaC), GitOps, and cloud-native best practices across the organization.
• Lead vulnerability remediation efforts and maintain Power BI dashboards to track image pull volumes and governance.

Use your skills to make an impact.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• Equivalent experience will be considered.
• 8+ years of experience in cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, systems engineering, or related technical disciplines.
• 5+ years of hands‑on experience designing, deploying, and supporting Kubernetes‑based platforms in enterprise cloud environments.
• Strong experience with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and/or Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
• hands‑on experience with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code methodologies.
• Experience utilizing GitHub for source control, collaboration, CI/CD, and platform engineering workflows.
• Strong understanding of cloud architecture, distributed systems, networking, security, governance, and reliability engineering principles.
• Experience implementing monitoring, observability, logging, and alerting solutions for cloud‑native environments.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot complex production issues and drive root cause analysis.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architectural decisions and lead cross‑functional initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Azure and Google platforms, and AKS and GKE runtime environments.
• Expertise with GitOps tools such as Argo CD or Flux.
• Experience with service mesh technologies such as Istio.
• Experience with container security platforms and Kubernetes security best practices.
• Knowledge of policy‑as‑code technologies such as Open Policy Agent (OPA), Kyverno, or Gatekeeper.
• Experience implementing cloud cost optimization and FinOps practices.
• Familiarity with CI/CD platforms such as GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or Jenkins.
• Experience with observability platforms such as Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Splunk, or New Relic.
• Cloud certifications such as: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Azure Solutions Architect Expert Google Professional Cloud Architect GCP Solutions Architect Professional

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Pay Range

The compensation range below reflects a good faith estimate of starting base pay for full time (40 hours per week) employment at the time of posting. The pay range may be higher or lower based on geographic location and individual pay will vary based on demonstrated job related skills, knowledge, experience, education, certifications, etc. $129,300 - $177,800 per year This job is eligible for a bonus incentive plan. This incentive opportunity is based upon company and/or individual performance.

Description of Benefits

Humana, Inc. and its affiliated subsidiaries (collectively, “Humana”) offers competitive benefits that support whole‑person well‑being. Associate benefits are designed to encourage personal wellness and smart healthcare decisions for you and your family while also knowing your life extends outside of work. Among our benefits, Humana provides medical, dental and vision benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, time off (including paid time off, company and personal holidays, paid parental and caregiver leave), short‑term and long‑term disability, life insurance and many other opportunities.

About Us

About Humana: Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is a leading U.S. healthcare company. Through our Humana insurance services and our CenterWell healthcare services, we make it easier for the millions of people we serve to achieve their best health – delivering the care and service they need, when they need it. These efforts are leading to a better quality of life for people with Medicare and Medicaid, families, individuals, military service personnel, and communities at large. Learn more about what we offer atHumana.comand atCenterWell.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the policy of Humana not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status. It is also the policy of Humana to take affirmative action, in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA, to employ and to advance in employment individuals with disability or protected veteran status, and to base all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. This policy shall apply to all employment actions, including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, upgrading, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, recall, termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation and selection for training, including apprenticeship, at all levels of employment.