Senior Payments Platform Engineer

Western Alliance Bancorporation; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative financial services company is searching for a Senior Payments Platform Engineer to lead the management and optimization of their core payment hub platform on Azure Kubernetes Service. This dynamic role requires expertise in cloud-native solutions, particularly in Azure and AKS, to ensure high availability and security of banking payments. The ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced environment, driving innovation while implementing best practices in DevSecOps and compliance. Join a high-performing team dedicated to transforming the payment landscape and enjoy a competitive salary and excellent benefits as you contribute to mission-critical projects.

Benefits

Competitive salaries

Ownership stake

Medical and dental insurance

401k matching program

Tuition assistance

Employee volunteer program

Wellness initiatives

Qualifications

• 5+ years in AKS or Kubernetes environments.
• Strong knowledge of DevSecOps and regulatory compliance.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform and Helm.

Responsibilities

• Manage and optimize Payment hub application in Azure Kubernetes Service.
• Develop and manage Helm charts for application deployments.
• Drive DevSecOps best practices for securing applications.

Skills

Azure cloud services

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

DevSecOps

Security vulnerability management

Java

Oracle

Kafka

Postgres

NoSQL databases

Terraform

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Tools

Terraform

Helm

Ansible

ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)

AppDynamics

Grafana

Job description

Job Title: Senior Payments Platform Engineer

Location:

Block 23

What you'll do:

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Platform Engineer - AKS to manage and optimize our core payment hub platform running on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This role will ensure high availability, security, and efficiency of the platform while driving innovation in cloud-native solutions for banking payments. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in Azure cloud services, AKS, DevSecOps, security vulnerabilities, CIS hardening, enterprise platform management, Helm chart management, Azure Container Registry (ACR) image management, and AKS Cron jobs. Prior banking experience and expertise in Java, Oracle, MQ, Kafka, Postgres, and NoSQL databases are highly preferred.

This position is part of a dynamic, high-performing, and innovative team that thrives in a fast-paced, agile environment. The ideal candidate will have a passion for collaborative problem-solving, cutting-edge technology, and continuous improvement in managing mission-critical payment platforms.

1. Manage, monitor, and optimize Payment hub application in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
2. Implement best practices for scalability, high availability, and resilience in a financial services environment.
3. Develop and manage Helm charts for application deployments and configurations.
4. Oversee image management in Azure Container Registry (ACR) to ensure compliance and security.
5. Develop and manage AKS Cron jobs for scheduled processing in the payments ecosystem.
6. Drive DevSecOps best practices for securing applications deployed over AKS.
7. Identify and remediate CIS vulnerabilities, security vulnerabilities, and compliance gaps in the platform.
8. Design and support network security, role-based access control (RBAC), and encryption within AKS and cloud environments.
9. Design and support IAM policies and integrate AKS with Azure Entra ID for secure access and authentication.
10. Leverage Azure cloud services for optimizing compute, storage, and networking resources.
11. Support Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform templates.
12. Manage AKS clusters, CI/CD pipelines, logging, monitoring, and autoscaling.
13. Implement and maintain observability tools for AKS environments, including ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana), AppDynamics, and Grafana.
14. Develop custom alerts and performance metrics to ensure system health and proactive issue resolution.
15. Optimize troubleshooting and root cause analysis using observability best practices.
16. Support and optimize core banking payment applications running on Java, WebLogic, IBM Liberty, Oracle, IBM MQ, Kafka, Postgres, and NoSQL.
17. Troubleshoot complex platform-related issues, including container orchestration, database integration, and messaging system performance.
18. Ensure seamless application lifecycle management on AKS, including rolling updates, auto-healing, and workload scaling.
19. Identify and implement automation, cost optimization, and performance enhancements across the platform.
20. Stay updated on emerging cloud-native technologies and container security best practices to drive innovation.

What you'll need:

1. 5+ years in AKS or Kubernetes environments.
2. Bachelor's degree in a related field required.
3. Expertise in Azure cloud services, including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure DevOps, Azure Security, and Azure Networking.
4. Strong knowledge of DevSecOps, CIS benchmarks, security vulnerability management, and regulatory compliance.
5. Hands-on experience with Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or other IaC tools.
6. Experience in middleware and messaging platforms such as IBM MQ, Kafka.
7. Proficiency in relational and NoSQL databases like Oracle, Postgres, Cosmos DB.
8. Prior experience working in banking, payments, or financial services is highly preferred.
9. Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and performance optimization skills.
10. Ability to lead technical initiatives, automation efforts, and cloud migration strategies.
11. Experience in IAM and integrating AKS with Azure Entra ID for authentication and access control.
12. Hands-on scripting experience using Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
13. Exposure to AI/ML-driven observability tools (AppDynamics, ELK, Prometheus/Grafana).
14. Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio), Kubernetes operators, and container networking preferred.
15. Familiarity with financial regulatory requirements like PCI DSS compliance preferred.

Benefits you'll love:

We offer competitive salaries, ownership stake, medical and dental insurance, time off, a great 401k matching program, tuition assistance, employee volunteer program, and wellness initiatives. You'll also gain invaluable hands-on experience in how successful companies operate and manage their finances, helping grow your career!

About the company:

Western Alliance Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation, with divisions including Alliance Bank of Arizona, Alliance Association Bank, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank, and Torrey Pines Bank; Member FDIC. AmeriHome Mortgage is also part of Western Alliance Bank.

Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment opportunities and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or genetic information. We accommodate individuals with disabilities; contact [e-mail] or call 602-386-2488 for assistance.