- Senior
- Bureau à Porto, PT
Join us in bringing joy to customer experience. Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software, bringing the power of cloud innovation to customers worldwide.
Living our values everyday results in our team-first culture and enables us to innovate, grow, and thrive while enjoying the journey together. We celebrate diversity and foster an inclusive environment, empowering our employees to be their authentic selves.
We’re looking for a Rancher Kubernetes expert to lead the design, automation, and reliability of our on-prem and hybrid container platform.
Sitting at the intersection of the Platform Engineering and Infrastructure Reliability teams, this role owns the lifecycle of Rancher-managed clusters—from bare-metal provisioning and performance tuning to observability, security, and automated operations.
You’ll apply SRE principles to ensure high availability, scalability, and resilience across environments supporting mission-critical workloads.
Core Responsibilities
Platform & Infrastructure Engineering:
Platform & Infrastructure Engineering:
- Design, deploy, and maintain Rancher-managed Kubernetes clusters (RKE2/K3s) at enterprise scale.
- Architect highly available clusters integrated with on-prem infrastructure: UCS, VxLAN, storage, DNS, and load balancers.
- Lead Rancher Fleet implementations for GitOps-driven cluster and workload management.
Performance Engineering & Optimization:
- Tune clusters for high-performance workloads on bare-metal hardware, optimizing CPU, memory, and I/O paths.
- Align cluster scheduling and resource profiles with physical infrastructure topologies (NUMA, NICs, etc.).
- Optimize CNI, kubelet, and scheduler settings for low-latency, high-throughput applications.
Security & Compliance:
- Implement security-first Kubernetes patterns: RBAC, Pod Security Standards, network policies, and image validation
- Drive left-shifted security using Terraform, Helm, and CI/CD pipelines; align to PCI, FIPS, and CIS benchmarks
- Lead infrastructure risk reviews and implement guardrails for regulated environments
Automation & Tooling:
- Build and maintain IaC stacks using Terraform, Helm, and Argo CD.
- Develop platform automation and observability tooling using Python or Go.
- Ensure declarative management of infrastructure and applications through GitOps pipelines.
SRE & Observability
- Apply SRE best practices for platform availability, capacity, latency, and incident response.
- Operate and tune Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK/EFK stacks for complete platform observability.
- Drive actionable alerting, automated recovery mechanisms, and clear operational documentation.
- Lead postmortems and drive systemic improvements to reduce MTTR and prevent recurrence.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years in infrastructure, platform, or SRE roles.
- Deep hands-on experience with Rancher (RKE2/K3s) in production environments.
- Proficient with Terraform, Helm, Argo CD, Python, and/or Go.
- Demonstrated performance tuning in bare-metal Kubernetes environments (UCS, VxLAN, MetalLB).
- Expert in Linux systems (systemd, networking, kernel tuning), Kubernetes internals, and container runtimes.
- Real-world application of SRE principles in high-stakes, always-on environments.
- Strong background operating Prometheus, Grafana, and Elasticsearch/Fluentd/Kibana (ELK/EFK) stacks.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience integrating Kubernetes with OpenStack and Magnum.
- Knowledge of Rancher add-ons: Fleet, Longhorn, CIS Scanning.
- Familiarity with compliance-driven infrastructure (PCI, FedRAMP, SOC2).
- Certifications: CKA, CKS, or Rancher Kubernetes Administrator.
Soft Skills & Traits
- Strategic thinker with strong technical judgment and execution ability.
- Calm and clear communicator, especially during incidents or reviews.
- Mentorship-oriented; supports team learning and cross-functional collaboration.
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and thrives in a fast-moving, ownership-driven culture.
Why This Role Matters
You will define how we build and run Kubernetes at scale—from bare metal to secure, observable production clusters. As a key leader bridging the Platform and Infrastructure orgs, you’ll shape the automation, security, and performance foundation that all of engineering builds on.
You will define how we build and run Kubernetes at scale—from bare metal to secure, observable production clusters. As a key leader bridging the Platform and Infrastructure orgs, you’ll shape the automation, security, and performance foundation that all of engineering builds on.
Benefits:
- Five9 Shares
- Bonus Scheme
- 10% Flex Benefit
- Meal Allowance
- Medical Insurance
- Life Insurance
- 25 day Annual Leave + Public Holidays
Five9 embraces diversity and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better we are. Five9 is an equal opportunity employer.
View our privacy policy, including our privacy notice to California residents here: https://www.five9.com/pt-pt/legal.
Note: Five9 will never request that an applicant send money as a prerequisite for commencing employment with Five9.
