Sr Kubernetes Platform Engineer

Lincoln Motor Company; Des Moines (IA); Remote; USD 100,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Paid time off

Holidays & vacation

Vehicle discount program

Tuition assistance

Parental leave

Flexible work options

Job summary

Ford Motor Company is seeking a senior Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate private cloud platforms using OpenShift/Kubernetes on‑premise and hybrid environments. You will implement GitOps pipelines, write IaC, and develop Operators and APIs for self‑service platform capabilities.

You will work with Go/Python, drive reliability through observability, and mentor engineers while collaborating with architects and application teams to remove platform constraints.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in Platform/SRE/DevSecOps with automation
• Hands-on Kubernetes/OpenShift admin and internals
• Strong Go and/or Python development experience
• CI/CD and GitOps tooling experience
• API development experience

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain OpenShift/Kubernetes platforms for on‑premise, bare‑metal, and hybrid environments.
• Develop and support custom Kubernetes/OpenShift Operators, APIs, and developer tooling for self‑service platform capabilities.
• Write clean, automated IaC using Go, Python, and Ansible.
• Implement GitOps-based CI/CD pipelines with Argo CD, Tekton, GitHub, Helm, and Kustomize.
• Enhance platform reliability with monitoring and automated recovery, and build observability dashboards.
• Collaborate with architects and teams to improve usability and mentor members.

Skills

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Go

Python

GitOps

IaC

API development

SRE

Observability

Tools

Argo CD

Tekton

Ansible

Helm

Kustomize

GitHub

Job description

We are the movers of the world and the makers of the future. We get up every day, roll up our sleeves and build a better world -- together. At Ford, we’re all a part of something bigger than ourselves. Are you ready to change the way the world moves?

Join a team building an enterprise-grade private cloud platform from the ground up, treating on-premise and hybrid infrastructure as a scalable, living software product rather than a set of manually operated systems. This role goes beyond configuring platforms — the candidate will help build them, developing and scaling OpenShift/Kubernetes clusters end-to-end through GitOps practices.

The ideal candidate has a strong engineering (not purely operational) mindset, with hands‑on coding and automation skills. This includes experience with GitOps tools (Argo CD, Github Actions, Tekton), Infrastructure as Code (YAML/IaC), Ansible playbooks, and proficiency in Go and/or Python (or a similar object‑oriented systems language), along with API development experience. A deep understanding of Kubernetes architecture, its components, and Operators is essential. The role blends platform engineering, infrastructure automation, and developer enablement, applying software engineering best practices to reliability, scalability, and self‑service capabilities for application teams.

What you'll do...

• Design, build, architect, and maintain OpenShift/Kubernetes platforms for on-premise, bare‑metal, and hybrid cloud environments, including virtualized (OpenShift Virtualization/OSV) and containerized workloads.

• Develop and support custom Kubernetes/OpenShift Operators, APIs, and developer tooling to enable seamless, self‑service platform capabilities for application teams.

• Write clean, testable, and robust infrastructure automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Go, Python, and Ansible to eliminate manual toil and drive the private cloud transformation.

• Implement and manage GitOps‑based CI/CD deployment pipelines using tools such as Argo CD, Tekton (OpenShift Pipelines), GitHub, Helm, Kustomize, and related build tools.

• Enhance platform reliability through monitoring, alerting, observability, and automated recovery/self‑healing mechanisms, applying a software‑driven SRE approach (including auto‑scaling and disaster recovery automation).

• Build and integrate observability solutions and dashboards using Prometheus, Grafana, Dynatrace/AppDynamics, and logging platforms (ELK/Splunk).

• Support distributed systems, microservices, API gateways, and service mesh (e.g., Istio) architectures, including secrets management (e.g., HashiCorp Vault) and Zero‑Trust security models.

• Explore and integrate emerging capabilities such as AI/ML pipelines (e.g., Vertex AI) and chaos engineering into private cloud operations.

• Collaborate closely with architects and application teams to improve platform usability, share ideas, and tackle platform constraints.

• Mentor team members (junior and senior developers), champion coding standards, and promote best practices in software craftsmanship, platform engineering, and GitOps workflows.

You'll have...

• 6+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or DevSecOps, with a strong automation and software development skillset (engineering mindset, not purely operational).

• Deep, hands‑on expertise with Kubernetes/OpenShift (OCP) platform administration and internals — cluster builds, upgrades, and integrations — implemented entirely through code, scripts, and automation (not manual/GUI‑driven).

• Strong object‑oriented programming background with demonstrated development skills in Go and/or Python (or a similar systems language); comfortable as a hands‑on developer/individual contributor.

• Practical experience with CI/CD and GitOps tooling (e.g., GitHub, Argo CD/OpenShift GitOps, Tekton/OpenShift Pipelines).

• Hands‑on experience with API development, integration, and an "API‑first" mindset.

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and infrastructure automation.

• Solid understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and cloud‑native design principles.

• Experience with Kubernetes Operators and custom controllers.

Even better, you may have...

• Experience with OpenShift internals such as Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM), MachineConfig, Multus CNI, Trident, Ceph, and OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF).

• Experience with OpenShift Virtualization for running mixed container and VM workloads.

• Experience with service mesh technologies (e.g., Istio) and API gateways.

• Experience with observability and analytics tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Splunk, Dynatrace, AppDynamics), including writing custom exporters/dashboards.

• Experience with storage solutions (Ceph, ODF) and secrets management (e.g., HashiCorp Vault).

• Exposure to hybrid cloud or private cloud environments, bare‑metal/VMware infrastructure, and Zero‑Trust security models.

• Familiarity with additional developer pipeline tools such as SonarQube, Maven, Polyrepo/Monorepo workflows.

• Interest or experience integrating AI/ML platforms (e.g., Vertex AI) and chaos engineering into infrastructure operations.

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp‑up programs, subsidized back‑up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

This position is a range of salary grades 7-8 | $99,600 –$192,900

SOUTHEAST MI RESIDENTS: This role is posted as remote unless you reside within 50 miles of Dearborn, MI—in which case we request on‑site presence up to 4 days a week.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a culturally diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status. In the United States, if you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please call 1-888-336-0660.