Hire senior andproven Kubernetesengineers
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Pick the Kubernetes problem. See who we would send.
Aryan GuptaSenior Platform Engineer96/ 100
Rohan MehtaDevOps Engineer92/ 100
Thabo NkosiStaff Engineer88/ 10025,000 applied. 1,000 got in.
Five scored stages, all finished before a profile reaches you. Nobody skips a stage to hit a deadline.
From £15 an hour. That is the whole pricing page.
One hourly rate with our margin printed on every invoice, billed monthly. No placement fee and no notice period beyond two weeks.
£8,314/ monthEquivalent to £48 an hourWhat a Kubernetes engineer does
Kubernetes engineers design, operate, and improve the container platform that application teams deploy onto. In a modern stack, Kubernetes usually sits between cloud infrastructure and application delivery: EKS, GKE, AKS, or self-managed clusters; IaC with Terraform; GitOps with Argo CD or Flux; ingress through Gateway API or an ingress controller; observability through Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and logs; security through RBAC, policy engines, image controls, and runtime detection. In 2026, a strong Kubernetes engineer should be comfortable with supported 1.34+ clusters, CRDs, autoscaling, network policy, supply chain security, and multi-cluster operations. A mid-level engineer can deploy workloads, debug common pod and service issues, and maintain Helm charts. A senior engineer designs the platform guardrails, plans upgrades, manages failure domains, reviews workload architecture, prevents noisy-neighbor problems, and makes Kubernetes usable for developers without hiding the operational risks.
Typical responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate production Kubernetes clusters on EKS, GKE, AKS, or self-managed infrastructure, including upgrades, node lifecycle, networking, storage, and backup strategy.
- Implement GitOps delivery using Argo CD or Flux, with Helm, Kustomize, progressive delivery, environment promotion, and safe rollback patterns.
- Define platform guardrails for namespaces, RBAC, quotas, pod security, admission control, network policies, secrets, and image provenance.
- Improve reliability through SLO-driven monitoring, alerting, autoscaling, capacity planning, incident response, and disaster recovery exercises.
- Partner with application teams to tune deployments, probes, resource requests and limits, disruption budgets, startup behavior, and rollout strategies.
- Document platform patterns, create reusable templates, review Kubernetes changes, and coach engineers on debugging and production readiness.
Must-have skills
- Hands-on production experience with Kubernetes 1.34+ concepts, including Deployments, StatefulSets, DaemonSets, Jobs, Services, Ingress or Gateway API, CRDs, admission webhooks, and controllers.
- Strong cloud Kubernetes experience with at least one managed service: Amazon EKS, Google GKE, or Azure AKS, including IAM integration, networking, node pools, and upgrade planning.
- Deep troubleshooting skills across pods, kubelet, scheduler behavior, DNS, CNI, CSI, image pulls, probes, evictions, service discovery, and control plane symptoms.
- Infrastructure as code experience with Terraform or Pulumi, plus Helm and Kustomize for repeatable cluster and workload configuration.
- GitOps and CI/CD experience using Argo CD or Flux, with promotion workflows, drift detection, secrets handling, and rollback procedures.
- Security knowledge covering RBAC, service accounts, Pod Security Standards, network policies, admission policies with Kyverno or OPA Gatekeeper, and container image scanning or signing.
- Observability skills with Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, log aggregation, Kubernetes events, and actionable alerting for workloads and platform components.
Nice to have
- Experience with Cilium, Calico, or cloud-native CNI features such as eBPF observability, network policy enforcement, and service mesh integration.
- Service mesh or advanced traffic management experience with Istio, Linkerd, Envoy Gateway, or Gateway API for mTLS, canaries, retries, and traffic splitting.
- Multi-cluster or fleet management experience with Cluster API, Crossplane, Argo CD ApplicationSets, or managed fleet tooling.
- Experience with Karpenter, Cluster Autoscaler, Vertical Pod Autoscaler, KEDA, or workload-specific autoscaling for cost and reliability tuning.
- Familiarity with platform engineering patterns such as internal developer platforms, Backstage, golden paths, policy-as-code, and self-service environments.
8 Kubernetes interview questions that reveal real depth
These are the kinds of questions our engineers use in technical interviews. Each comes with what a strong answer sounds like.
Full set: 25 Kubernetes questions by level, with red flags- Q1
Walk me through how you would upgrade a production Kubernetes cluster from an older supported version to a newer 1.34+ version with minimal risk.
Strong answer: A strong candidate describes reading release notes and API deprecations, testing add-ons first, validating CRDs and admission webhooks, upgrading non-production clusters, and checking CNI, CSI, ingress, autoscaler, and observability compatibility. They discuss control plane before nodes, surge or blue-green node pools, PodDisruptionBudgets, rollback limits, maintenance windows, and post-upgrade validation with real workloads.
- Q2
A service is intermittently timing out inside the cluster, but pods look healthy. How would you debug it?
Strong answer: A strong answer starts with scoping: one service, namespace, node, zone, or cluster-wide. They inspect endpoints, EndpointSlices, DNS, kube-proxy or CNI behavior, network policies, ingress or Gateway configuration, conntrack exhaustion, pod CPU throttling, and upstream latency. They use events, metrics, logs, packet captures or Cilium/Hubble where available, and avoid guessing from pod status alone.
- Q3
How do you design namespace, RBAC, and policy boundaries for multiple application teams sharing a cluster?
Strong answer: Look for a model based on least privilege and repeatable templates. A strong candidate separates teams by namespace or environment, uses service accounts rather than broad user permissions, sets quotas and LimitRanges, enforces Pod Security Standards, applies network policies, and uses Kyverno or Gatekeeper for required labels, registries, probes, and unsafe capability blocking. They also mention exception handling and auditability.
- Q4
What makes a Kubernetes workload production-ready beyond having a Deployment and Service?
Strong answer: A senior candidate covers resource requests and limits, readiness and liveness probes, startup probes when needed, graceful shutdown, PodDisruptionBudgets, topology spread constraints, anti-affinity where appropriate, secure service accounts, secrets handling, health dashboards, alerts, rollback strategy, and runbooks. They explain how these settings interact with scheduling, autoscaling, node drains, and user-visible availability.
- Q5
When would you use HPA, VPA, KEDA, Cluster Autoscaler, or Karpenter, and what can go wrong?
Strong answer: A strong answer separates pod scaling from node scaling. HPA reacts to metrics like CPU or custom Prometheus metrics; VPA recommends or adjusts requests; KEDA scales on event sources; Cluster Autoscaler and Karpenter add capacity. Pitfalls include slow scale-out, missing requests, thrashing, incompatible disruption settings, pending pods due to constraints, and scaling stateful systems without understanding bottlenecks.
- Q6
How would you manage secrets in Kubernetes for a regulated production environment?
Strong answer: A strong candidate avoids plain YAML secrets in Git and discusses External Secrets Operator, CSI Secret Store, cloud secret managers, SOPS with age or KMS, sealed secrets where appropriate, and encryption at rest. They cover RBAC, service account scope, rotation, audit logs, avoiding environment variable leakage for sensitive values, and incident procedures for secret exposure.
- Q7
A CRD-backed platform component such as cert-manager, External Secrets, or an ingress controller is failing after a change. How do you approach it?
Strong answer: Strong candidates understand that CRDs add APIs and controllers with their own reconciliation loops. They check CRD version compatibility, conversion webhooks, controller logs, leader election, events, finalizers, RBAC, admission failures, and object status conditions. They plan CRD upgrades carefully because rollback can be hard once stored versions or object schemas change.
- Q8
How do you decide between using managed Kubernetes and alternatives such as ECS, Cloud Run, Nomad, or serverless?
Strong answer: A strong answer is pragmatic. Kubernetes fits when teams need portable orchestration, rich ecosystem controllers, complex networking, multi-service platforms, or standardized deployment across environments. Simpler alternatives may be better for small services, limited operations staff, or cloud-specific workloads. They should discuss operational burden, developer experience, compliance, scaling patterns, and avoiding Kubernetes when it adds unnecessary complexity.
Senior Kubernetes engineer job description
A ready-to-paste template. Or skip the posting entirely: send it to us as your brief and get a scored shortlist in 48 hours.
About the role We are hiring a Senior Kubernetes Engineer to build and operate our production container platform. You will work with application, security, and infrastructure teams to make deployments safer, faster, and easier to support. What you'll do Design and maintain Kubernetes clusters on cloud infrastructure. Own upgrades, node lifecycle, ingress, DNS, storage, and cluster add-ons. Build GitOps workflows with Argo CD or Flux, Helm, and Kustomize. Set platform guardrails for RBAC, policies, secrets, quotas, and network access. Improve observability with Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, logs, and alerts. Troubleshoot incidents across workloads, networking, autoscaling, and the control plane. Create reusable patterns and coach developers on Kubernetes production readiness. What you'll bring Strong production Kubernetes experience, preferably with EKS, GKE, or AKS. Deep knowledge of workloads, services, ingress or Gateway API, CNI, CSI, CRDs, and controllers. Experience with Terraform or similar infrastructure as code. Practical security knowledge across RBAC, Pod Security Standards, admission policy, and secrets. Clear communication, good documentation habits, and calm incident response skills.
What you get with Kubernetes
Pre-Vetted Expertise
Every Kubernetes developer on OctogleHire passes a rigorous vetting process covering technical skills, communication, and problem-solving ability.
Start in Days, Not Months
Skip the lengthy recruitment cycle. Our Kubernetes engineers are ready to integrate with your team and start delivering within days.
Up to 60% Cost Savings
Access world-class Kubernetes talent at a fraction of the cost of local hires, without compromising on quality or experience.
Risk-Free Trial Period
Every Kubernetes engagement starts with a trial period. If you're not completely satisfied, you pay nothing.
The engagement, as a spec sheet
How OctogleHire compares
Vetting
Resume screening only
Self-reported skills
5-stage technical vetting (1 in 25 pass rate)
Time to Hire
6–12 weeks
Weeks of filtering
48 hours to first match
Cost
$20K–$40K placement fees
Low rates, variable quality
40–60% less, no placement fee
Compliance
You manage it
You manage it
Fully managed (30+ countries)
Replacement
30–90 days (if any)
None
14–30 day replacement guarantee
Support
Account rep (9-5)
Ticket system
Dedicated account manager
“We in need of a handful of developers for our internal CRM build after speaking with multiple agencies and receiving some quotations we sat down with Yaseen from Octogle and we were pleasantly surprised to see what was available for us within their talent pool. we took on three developers saving upwards of circa £6000 per month and developing the software in record time exactly how we wanted it. Highly suggest anyone to use octogle hire if you’re looking for a cost-effective high-quality software development solution.”
Questions engineering leaders ask
Hire a Kubernetes engineer when you already run multiple services, need platform guardrails, rely on controllers and CRDs, or want a consistent deployment model across teams and environments. If you have a few stateless services and limited operational needs, managed containers or serverless may be simpler. A good candidate should help you make that tradeoff, not force Kubernetes everywhere.
Test production judgment, not command memorization. Ask candidates to debug a failing rollout, explain resource requests and limits, review a Helm chart, design RBAC for a team, and plan a cluster upgrade. Strong candidates understand networking, storage, autoscaling, observability, and security controls. They should also explain tradeoffs clearly to application engineers and managers.
It depends on your cluster maturity and documentation. An experienced engineer can usually contribute quickly to troubleshooting, manifests, Helm charts, and observability. Deeper work such as redesigning network policy, upgrading clusters, or changing GitOps workflows requires time to understand your cloud accounts, incident history, security constraints, and deployment habits. Good onboarding access and runbooks shorten the ramp.
Use freelance or contract help for focused outcomes: migration, upgrade planning, GitOps setup, observability cleanup, or incident stabilization. Hire full-time when Kubernetes is core to your delivery model and needs ongoing ownership, roadmap planning, developer support, and on-call continuity. Many companies start with a senior contractor to fix platform gaps, then hire for long-term operations.
Yes, if the work is structured well. Kubernetes work is naturally suited to remote collaboration because most artifacts live in Git, dashboards, tickets, runbooks, and cloud consoles. The important parts are secure access, clear incident channels, written change plans, pairing for risky changes, and overlap for production support. Remote engineers should communicate decisions and risks before applying cluster changes.
There is overlap, but the focus differs. A DevOps engineer may cover CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, automation, monitoring, and release processes broadly. A Kubernetes engineer goes deeper on cluster internals, workload patterns, CNI, CSI, CRDs, controllers, admission policies, autoscaling, and multi-team platform design. For a mature Kubernetes environment, that depth prevents fragile clusters and unsafe application defaults.
Prioritize production operations over lab experience. Senior candidates should have handled upgrades, outages, failed rollouts, node pressure, DNS or CNI issues, certificate problems, storage incidents, and policy design. They should know managed Kubernetes limitations and when to use ecosystem tools such as Argo CD, Helm, Cilium, Kyverno, cert-manager, External Secrets, and Prometheus without overcomplicating the platform.
Ask candidates to secure a multi-team cluster. Look for RBAC design, scoped service accounts, Pod Security Standards, admission control, network policies, image scanning or signing, secret management, audit logging, and safe defaults in templates. Strong candidates also discuss developer experience: policies should be understandable, tested in CI where possible, and have a controlled exception process.
You'll receive 3–5 vetted candidate profiles within 48 hours of your demo call. Most companies go from first intro to signed contract in under 5 business days — compared to 6–12 weeks with traditional agencies.
Every developer passes a 5-stage process: application screening, stack-specific technical assessment, live system design interview, soft-skills evaluation, and reference checks. From over 25,000 applicants reviewed, only 1,000 have been accepted into our network.
OctogleHire engineers start at £15/hr (about $19), with senior engineers at about £24/hr. That is roughly 50–65% less than the loaded cost of an equivalent in-house hire in the UK, US or Australia — a senior UK hire costs about £48/hr once employer costs are included. There are no upfront fees or placement commissions; you pay one published hourly rate once your engineer starts.
Every placement includes a risk-free replacement guarantee — 14 days on our On-Demand plan and 30 days on our Marketplace plan. If a developer doesn't meet your expectations, we'll find a replacement at no additional cost and manage the transition for you. Our replacement rate is under 6%.
Send the brief. Meet Kubernetes engineers on Thursday.
Twenty minutes with an Octogle engineer, then three to five scored profiles inside 48 hours. Free to post, with a replacement guarantee on every placement.