Senior Cloud engineer, Johannesburg

About the Role

We are looking for a Cloud engineer to architect, build, and maintain secure, scalable, and resilient cloud platforms while driving excellence in cloud infrastructure, DevOps practices, and platform reliability. You will design innovative cloud solutions, implement Infrastructure-as-Code, and provide hands-on support across both production and development environments. In this role, you will mentor and lead junior and intermediate engineers, fostering a culture of collaboration and technical growth, while effectively communicating with both technical teams and business stakeholders to deliver impactful solutions.

Key Responsibilities

1. Cloud Architecture & Engineering

• Design and build distributed cloud systems across AWS, Azure, and hybrid environments
• Architect resilient, scalable, highly available cloud-native platforms
• Implement and manage container platforms (Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, EKS, AKS, GKE, ODF)
• Work with Operator Framework to develop and manage Kubernetes/OpenShift operators
• Support provisioning, orchestration, automation, and infrastructure scaling
• Integrate Linux systems with authentication and directory services
• Configure and manage enterprise storage systems across cloud and on-prem environments

1. Infrastructure Automation & DevOps

• Design and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, ARM, Pulumi)
• Develop automation scripts for provisioning, configuration, and deployment
• Implement CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins
• Maintain software repositories and automate software update processes
• Build and deploy serverless architectures and containerized workloads

1. Reliability, Monitoring & Security

• Implement observability using Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, X-Ray, ELK/EFK, or Datadog
• Monitor system health through automated and manual processes
• Lead disaster recovery, backup, and replication strategies
• Ensure compliance with NIST, CIS benchmarks, and Zero Trust principles
• Troubleshoot OS-level and application-level issues across Linux and container platforms
• Apply cloud security best practices including IAM governance, network security, and encryption

1. Collaboration, Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement

• Work closely with customers and internal teams to understand requirements and deliver solutions
• Set clear expectations and communicate effectively with stakeholders
• Mentor junior and intermediate engineers
• Drive improvements, promote DevOps culture, and support change management
• Represent the infrastructure team in cross-functional initiatives and escalations

Your Expertise

Core Technical Skills

• 5+ years hands-on cloud/platform engineering experience
• Strong experience with Linux systems (RHEL, Ubuntu, CentOS)
• Expertise in containerization (Docker, Podman, Containerd, CRI-O)
• Expertise in container orchestration (Kubernetes, OpenShift, EKS, AKS, GKE)
• Experience with cloud provider services (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Strong background in monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, CloudWatch, X-Ray, Datadog)
• Skilled in Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, Pulumi)
• Ability to troubleshoot Linux performance, networking, SELinux, permissions, and storage issues
• Proficient in backup, replication, and disaster recovery strategy implementation

Highly Desirable & In-Demand Skills

• Experience with service meshes (Istio, Linkerd)
• Knowledge of SRE principles (SLAs, SLOs, error budgets)
• Understanding of Zero Trust security and cloud security posture management (CSPM)
• Familiarity with API gateways and ingress controllers (NGINX, Kong, Traefik)
• GitOps experience (ArgoCD, Flux)
• Multi-cloud or hybrid cloud architecture experience
• Storage technologies (block, object, distributed storage)
• Programming/automation in Python, Go, or Bash
• Exposure to event-driven architectures and message brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ)

Education:

• Bachelor's degree, diploma, or higher certificate in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field
• OR equivalent hands-on cloud engineering experience

Preferred Certifications (Beneficial but not compulsory): 

• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA)
• Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) 
• Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect / AWS Certified DevOps Engineer 
• Azure Administrator Associate / Solutions Architect 
• CKA, CKAD, CKS (Kubernetes certifications) 

Additional Information

• Contract Duration: 12 Months (with possibility of renewal)
• Salary: Negotiable
• Location Options: Johannesburg / Cape Town / Remote
• Must be located in South Africa or have a valid work permit for South Africa