Senior Platform Engineer (Crossplane)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Platform Engineer (Crossplane) based in Canada.
The Senior Platform Engineer will design, build, and operate cloud-native infrastructure supporting a large-scale data platform processing approximately 400,000 pipelines every day. This hands-on engineering role focuses on production Kubernetes environments, infrastructure orchestration, and the development of scalable platform capabilities using Crossplane and Terraform. You will build reusable infrastructure services, controllers, and automation tools that empower engineering teams to provision and manage resources independently. Working across distributed systems, networking, observability, and cloud infrastructure, you will drive reliability, performance, and operational excellence. You will also take ownership of complex, long-term technical initiatives, from initial architecture and design through production implementation. This fully remote opportunity is ideal for an experienced platform engineer who combines strong software development skills with deep Kubernetes expertise and a passion for building resilient infrastructure.
AccountabilitiesYou will take ownership of the architecture, development, and operation of production Kubernetes platforms and infrastructure orchestration systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficient resource management across a complex data environment. Your responsibilities will include:
Design, build, and operate production Kubernetes clusters, including networking, workload isolation, cluster lifecycle management, and multi-region architectures.
Develop and extend infrastructure orchestration capabilities using Crossplane, Kubernetes custom resources, controllers, and operators.
Work with Kubernetes internals, including resource quotas, scheduling, NetworkPolicy enforcement, cluster behavior, and reconciliation patterns.
Build reusable, self-service platform capabilities that enable engineering teams to provision and manage infrastructure consistently.
Implement and operate service mesh solutions, including mutual TLS (mTLS), service-account authentication and authorization, and traffic management.
Optimize containerized workloads for performance, cost efficiency, resource utilization, and reduced operational risk.
Develop, refactor, and maintain production services, Kubernetes controllers, operators, and platform middleware using Go, Python, or Java.
Build and maintain Kubernetes APIs, custom resources, reconciliation loops, and infrastructure templates.
Contribute to complex existing codebases, including open-source projects and customized platform components.
Develop REST, and gRPC interfaces supporting internal engineering teams.
Establish meaningful unit and integration testing practices to ensure the reliability and maintainability of platform services.
Lead incident response for platform-level issues, investigate root causes, and implement long-term corrective solutions.
Troubleshoot production Kubernetes infrastructure and distributed systems using logs, metrics, traces, and performance profiling tools.
Design resilient infrastructure with appropriate workload isolation, failure-domain boundaries, and blast-radius reduction.
Identify and resolve performance, capacity, and reliability challenges across distributed systems and data-intensive workloads.
Define and manage Service Level Objectives (SLOs), implementing actionable monitoring and alerting mechanisms.
Design and maintain reusable Terraform modules and Crossplane infrastructure abstractions for use across engineering teams.
Develop and improve infrastructure provisioning, orchestration, and delivery workflows using Crossplane, Terraform, and GitOps.
Enhance CI/CD and GitOps practices to support safe, frequent, and reliable software delivery.
Balance developer productivity with infrastructure reliability, security, and compliance requirements.
Support cloud migration initiatives, including transitions between cloud providers and environments while minimizing downtime.
Build and maintain observability infrastructure, including metrics, dashboards, alerting policies, and distributed tracing.
Instrument platform components and infrastructure services to ensure failures can be diagnosed without requiring code changes.
Collaborate with Data Engineering, Product, Security, and Infrastructure teams to define requirements and align technical architecture.
Participate in architecture and design reviews, contributing to the technical direction of the data platform.
Mentor other engineers and promote high standards of platform engineering practices.
Independently lead complex infrastructure initiatives while communicating technical decisions, trade-offs, and progress to stakeholders.
RequirementsThe ideal candidate is a highly experienced infrastructure or platform engineer with a strong software development background and proven expertise operating production Kubernetes environments. You should be comfortable independently designing complex systems, solving distributed infrastructure challenges, and delivering reliable solutions in a fast-moving technical environment. Key qualifications include:
At least 7 years of professional experience in software engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
Significant experience operating production distributed systems and building Kubernetes platforms, rather than simply deploying applications onto existing clusters.
Hands-on production software development experience in Go, Python, or Java, with Go strongly preferred.
Experience developing infrastructure platforms or internal developer platforms used by multiple engineering teams.
Proven ability to design, develop, and maintain reusable Terraform modules or equivalent infrastructure abstractions.
Experience independently designing systems from ambiguous requirements and carrying them through implementation and production.
A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Strong understanding of Kubernetes internals, including Container Network Interface (CNI), NetworkPolicy, resource management, scheduling, cluster lifecycle, and behavior under load.
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes APIs, custom resources, controllers, operators, and reconciliation patterns.
Strong production coding skills and experience developing and maintaining platform services and infrastructure tooling.
Experience with declarative infrastructure orchestration and provisioning;
practical Crossplane experience is highly preferred.
Advanced Infrastructure as Code expertise, particularly Terraform module design and ownership.
Strong understanding of GitOps principles, preferably with Argo CD.
Hands-on experience with service mesh technologies such as Istio, Envoy, or Linkerd, including mTLS and workload identity.
Solid Linux fundamentals, including cgroups, networking, and resource management.
Production experience with at least one major cloud provider, such as GCP, AWS, or Azure;
multi-cloud experience is an advantage.
Familiarity with observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry, as well as query languages like PromQL.
Production experience with relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL or managed PostgreSQL-compatible services, including replication and failover concepts.
Experience with Docker and container technologies throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and performance profiling capabilities.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
Clear written and verbal communication, particularly when preparing technical documentation, explaining architectural trade-offs, and gathering cross-team requirements.
A proactive and autonomous working style, with the ability to identify infrastructure challenges, propose solutions, and drive implementation independently.
Ability to manage complex platform engineering initiatives from initial design through production deployment.
Comfort working in a fast-paced, technically demanding environment.
Additional experience that would be advantageous includes:
Hands-on Crossplane expertise, including Compositions, XRDs, providers, managed resources, and custom infrastructure abstractions.
Contributions to open-source projects within the CNCF or Kubernetes ecosystem, such as Crossplane, KEDA, Argo CD, Strimzi, or Envoy.
Experience with large-scale data platforms and technologies such as Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, or Apache Spark.
Production experience with Alibaba Cloud (AliCloud), particularly infrastructure operations or cloud migrations.
Experience designing resilient distributed systems using cell-based architectures, workload isolation, and blast-radius reduction.
Kubernetes certifications such as CKA, CKAD, or KCNA.
Familiarity with Go testing frameworks such as Ginkgo and Gomega.
Additional proficiency in Python and the ability to read Java code.
Experience with identity and access management technologies, including SSO, Keycloak, OIDC, SAML, and secrets management solutions such as Vault.
Experience designing high-availability and disaster recovery solutions across multiple regions or cloud providers.
Familiarity with monorepo architectures and build systems such as Bazel.
Exposure to compliance frameworks such as SOC 2 or GDPR.
Active participation in the Kubernetes and CNCF communities through conferences, technical presentations, or open-source contributions.
Benefits
Fully remote working arrangement.
Opportunity to work on a large-scale data platform processing approximately 400,000 pipelines daily.
Significant technical ownership and autonomy over infrastructure architecture, engineering decisions, and implementation strategies.
Opportunity to build and operate production Kubernetes infrastructure rather than focusing primarily on application deployment or managed cloud services.
Exposure to advanced cloud-native technologies, including Crossplane, Terraform, Kubernetes, Go, and GitOps.
Opportunity to develop reusable infrastructure capabilities that directly support multiple engineering teams.
Collaboration with experienced professionals across Data Engineering, Product, Security, and Infrastructure.
Opportunity to influence the technical direction of a complex, high-scale platform.
A challenging engineering environment with ownership of long-term, impactful infrastructure initiatives.
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