SRE Devops - Kubernetes (NCS/Job/ 2822)

Aviation Platform Engineering Architect – Kubernetes (K8s) & Argo

Role Overview

Lead the design and evolution of a cloud‑native platform for airline operations (Crew Scheduling, Flight Ops, CMS/OPS) built on Kubernetes with GitOps using Argo CD and Argo Workflows. Own multi‑cluster architecture, security/compliance, reliability, observability, and progressive delivery for mission‑critical aviation workloads. (AA TOPS references already define K8s/DevOps foundations and GitOps (ArgoCD) in the skills stack.)

🎯 Key Responsibilities

1) Platform Architecture & Roadmap

• Define multi‑cluster, multi‑region AKS/EKS reference architectures (control/worker plane sizing, HA, DR, backup/restore) and platform roadmaps for Crew/OPS modules. (K8s/DevOps platform and FAA/BiTS compliance noted in AA TOPS materials.)
• Establish GitOps standards (Argo CD) for environment parity, change safety, and progressive delivery across flight and crew applications. (GitOps with ArgoCD listed in internal JD.)

2) Application Delivery & Orchestration

• Standardize Helm/Kustomize packaging; design Argo ApplicationSets for fleet‑wide promotion (dev → QA → UAT → prod) with automated policy checks and approvals.
• Build Argo Workflows pipelines for batch/stream processing (e.g., pairing optimizers, rules engines, schedule calculators), integrating Kafka/Pinot and domain services where applicable. (Rules/Kafka/Pinot are active in AA POC.)

3) Security, Compliance & Governance

• Implement workload identity, RBAC, NetworkPolicies, PodSecurity; enforce policies with OPA/Gatekeeper or Kyverno.
• Codify FAA/EASA evidence (change logs, traceability, approvals) and adhere to BiTS and hub‑and‑spoke security guidance referenced in TOPS implementations. [

4) Reliability, Observability & SRE

• Define SLOs/SLIs for movement control, crew tracking, rules services; automate canary/blue‑green via Argo CD and progressive rollouts.
• Standardize Prometheus/Grafana/ELK/Loki/OpenTelemetry for metrics, logs, traces; create dashboards and runbooks for incident response. (Observability tools called out in AA Onsite JD.)

5) Infrastructure as Code & Automation

• Drive Terraform/Crossplane for cluster and cloud resource lifecycle; encode networking (CNI/Istio/Linkerd) and ingress (NGINX/Contour) as declarative assets. (IaC, service mesh, CNI are part of internal skills sets.) 6) Cost, Performance & Resiliency Engineering

• Optimize cluster autoscaling, HPA/VPA, node pools, spot/on‑demand mixes; benchmark latency for real‑time ops (e.g., tail assignment, crew legality checks).
• Engineer DR (e.g., Velero) and far‑region support noted in TOPS, targeting 99%+ availability for core airline use‑cases. 7) Ways of Working & Leadership

• Lead architecture reviews, ADRs, reference implementations; mentor platform/SRE teams.
• Partner with Product/BA/Test to ensure non‑functional requirements (availability, throughput, RTO/RPO) are built‑in; support RFP/solutioning for AA TOPS initiatives. (Solution Architect responsibilities and leadership in airline domain JD.)

🧩 Skills Required

Core Platform & Cloud

• Kubernetes (cluster lifecycle, multi‑cluster, node pools, scheduling, policies), Docker; AKS/AWS/EKS/Azure constructs (VNets/VPCs, IAM/Entra
• GitOps with Argo CD (AppSets, sync waves, health checks, automated promotions), Argo Workflows for orchestration.
• Service Mesh (Istio/Linkerd), CNI (Calico/Cilium), Ingress (NGINX/Contour), API gateways, Secrets (Vault/Key Vault).

DevSecOps & IaC

• Terraform, ARM/Bicep or Crossplane; policy‑as‑code (OPA/Gatekeeper/Kyverno); supply‑chain security (Cosign, SBOMs).
• CI/CD (Jenkins/GitHub Actions) feeding GitOps; approvals & gated deployments per aviation compliance.

Observability & SRE

• Prometheus/Grafana, ELK/Loki, OpenTelemetry; alerting; SLO/SLA frameworks; chaos/resilience testing patternsAviation Domain

• Airline operations: Crew Scheduling, Flight Ops, Movement Control, and constraints (legality, rest, duty limits). (Domains and modules documented in TOPS onboarding and AA JD
• Regulatory frameworks: FAA/EASA; familiarity with BiTS security guidance referenced in TOPS.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Stakeholder management, cross‑functional leadership in Agile/SAFe programs; architecture governance for large‑scale modernization. (Leadership and SAFe noted in AA JD and Solution Architect doc

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