Senior QA Engineer - Kubernetes & Cloud-Native Platforms

SmartRecruiters, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Mirantis, an IREN company, is a Kubernetes-native AI infrastructure company helping organizations build scalable, secure, and sovereign platforms for AI workloads. We seek a senior QA leader to drive test strategy across Kubernetes and cloud-native environments, shaping risk-based testing and automation in multi-cluster deployments.

You will mentor teams, influence design reviews, and partner with DevOps to optimize monitoring, error detection, and release readiness in a fast-paced,

Qualifications

• 10+ years in software testing or quality engineering roles, with 4+ years focused on Kubernetes, cloud-native applications, and distributed systems.
• Proven leadership experience in building and scaling test strategies in enterprise-grade environments.
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes internals, cluster lifecycle management, Helm, service meshes (Istio or Linkerd), and network policies.
• Strong scripting and automation capabilities (Python, Pytest, Bash, etc.).
• Familiarity with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger), Kubernetes security (RBAC, secrets management), and performance benchmarking tools (K6).
• Solid grounding in cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP), infrastructure provisioning, and containerized CI/CD.
• Moderate to advanced Linux knowledge and proficiency: Bash, systemd, networking, certs, containers, kubectl/Helm with OCI registries, and GitOps/Flux.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to driving the overall QA strategy for Kubernetes and cloud-native environments, aligning quality goals with business objectives and release deadlines.
• Evaluate and champion best-in-class testing practices and frameworks for distributed systems.
• Lead risk analysis and test planning for large-scale, multi-cloud infrastructure and container orchestration.
• Architect test frameworks and infrastructure for validating microservices and infrastructure components in multi-cluster and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Oversee the design of complex test scenarios simulating production-like workloads, resource scaling, failure injection, and recovery across distributed clusters.
• Spearhead the development of scalable and maintainable test automation integrated with CI/CD (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, etc.).
• Leverage Kubernetes APIs, Helm, and service mesh tools to build comprehensive automation coverage, including system health, failover behavior, and network resilience.
• Mentor QA engineers and developers in advanced testing techniques such as risk-based testing, chaos engineering, performance and load testing.
• Serve as the QA authority in design reviews, production readiness assessments, and incident retrospectives.
• Collaborate with DevOps to refine monitoring, alerting, and debugging strategies for testing automation in CI/CD.
• Establish quality gates, release readiness metrics, and data-driven feedback loops to ensure production-quality releases.
• Drive initiatives to integrate performance, security, and chaos testing into the development lifecycle.
• Advocate for a culture of quality across teams and influence architecture decisions with testing in mind.

Skills

Kubernetes expertise

Cloud-native apps

Leadership

Python scripting

CI/CD automation

Observability

Linux proficiency

Networking basics

GitOps/Flux

Helm / Kubectl

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Tools

Helm

Istio

Linkerd

Docker

Prometheus

Grafana

Jaeger

kubectl

Flux

Job description

Mirantis, an IREN company, is a Kubernetes-native AI infrastructure company helping organizations build scalable, secure, and sovereign platforms for AI workloads. We seek a senior QA leader to drive test strategy across Kubernetes and cloud-native environments, shaping risk-based testing and automation in multi-cluster deployments.

You will mentor teams, influence design reviews, and partner with DevOps to optimize monitoring, error detection, and release readiness in a fast-paced,