Senior Platform Engineer (m/f/d) Open Digital Platform (ODP) (Herzogenaurach, BY, DE) at adidas Group

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

The role builds, operates and improves the Container Orchestration Platform (ODP - Open Digital Platform) as part of Cloud Native Engineering, providing Kubernetes-based container orchestration and automation capabilities.

Supports and consults adidas engineering teams on cloud-native application deployment, container orchestration strategies, and platform services to accelerate time-to-market and enhance developer productivity while ensuring operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

Platform Evolution

• Design, build, and evolve the Cloud Native Container Orchestration platform with AWS and Kubernetes at its core
• Lead technical evaluations and proof-of-concepts for emerging technologies
• Define the future platform architecture and tooling throughout the whole lifecycle

Service Management and Operations

• Monitor and manage platform availability, reliability, and scalability using a modern observability stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Instana, etc.)
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub, GitHub Actions and Jenkins.
• Run and operate a highly critical platform meeting defined SLAs and performance targets.
• Lead incident responses and participate 24/7 on-call rotation
• Contribute to capacity planning, day-2 operations, and lifecycle management
• Follow modern service management principles to continuously improve the platform offering at scale

Security by Design

• Integrate security and compliance mechanisms into platform design using tools like Kyverno (policy as code).
• Incorporate security design principles and best practices into new and existing solutions
• Ensure secure container orchestration and policy enforcement across environments.
• Implement automated validation and testing steps in CI/CD pipelines to ensure compliance and reliability.
• Design and document disaster recovery strategies for cloud-native services.

Stakeholder Management

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (e.g., Finance, HR, Brand Marketing, Retail) to align platform capabilities with business needs.
• Act as a trusted advisor to internal engineering teams on cloud-native deployment strategies and architectures.
• Collect and use feedback from stakeholders to improve platform services and developer experience.
• Communicate technical decisions and roadmaps effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Mentoring and Upskilling

• Provide expert-level guidance and mentorship to the adidas Tech Organization.
• Lead tailored training sessions and workshops on Kubernetes, cloud-native technologies, and DevOps practices.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning and technical excellence.
• Conduct code and design reviews to elevate engineering standards.

Must have Technical Skills

• Expert level in Kubernetes and Container Runtime
• Advanced level with public cloud providers (AWS preferred)
• Hands-on experience in operating large scale distributed systems
• Hands-on experience in Linux
• Hands-on experience in software development in at least one high level programming language (e.g. Python, GoLang)
• Solid understanding for network concepts and protocols

Soft-skills / Mindset:

• Growth mindset: Continuous learning culture and hands-on attitude toward new technologies and challenges
• Excellent problem-solving skills: Ability to troubleshoot complex distributed systems and resolve critical issues systematically
• Strong sense of accountability: Display ownership across the entire platform lifecycle from design and implementation to operations and maintenance
• Platform engineering mindset: Embrace cloud-native and DevOps principles with focus on automation, scalability, and end-to-end system reliability

Main Technologies in Use:

• Cloud Provider: AWS
• Core Platform: Kubernetes including various open-source controllers and operators
• Coding and Scripting: Go, Python, Bash, Groovy
• Infrastructure as Code: Helm, OpenTofu, Crossplane, Cloud Formation
• SDLC: GitHub, GitHub Actions, Harbor, Atlassian Tools (Bitbucket, Jira, Confluence), FluxCD, Jenkins, etc.
• Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Instana, etc.