Executive IT DevOps

We are seeking a skilled Executive IT DevOps Engineer specializing in BSS Applications Assurance to join our Information Technology department in Islamabad. This permanent role reports to the Senior Manager of BSS Planning & Operations. The successful candidate will be responsible for managing, maintaining, monitoring, and supporting Kubernetes and container platforms along with their associated infrastructure. Collaboration with software development, IT operations, information security, database, network, and application teams is essential to ensure high availability, secure deployments, and seamless application operations.

Key Responsibilities

Kubernetes / Container Platform Management: Deploy, configure, and maintain Kubernetes clusters including worker and control-plane nodes. Manage namespaces, deployments, pods, services, ingress, config maps, secrets, persistent volumes, and resource quotas. Perform cluster upgrades, patching, certificate management, and health checks. Troubleshoot issues related to clusters, nodes, pods, networking, storage, and applications. Oversee container image lifecycle, registries, and vulnerability remediation. Configure and maintain Helm charts and Kubernetes manifests. Implement high availability, scalability, and disaster recovery mechanisms.

CI/CD & DevOps Automation: Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitLab, Jenkins, or equivalent tools. Automate application build, testing, containerization, deployment, and rollback processes. Apply deployment strategies such as rolling, blue-green, and canary deployments. Manage Git repositories, branching strategies, release processes, and deployment approvals. Develop automation scripts using Shell, Python, PowerShell, or similar languages.

Application Deployment & Support: Assist development teams in deploying applications on Kubernetes/container platforms. Manage application configurations across Development, UAT, DR, and Production environments. Troubleshoot application availability, authentication, connectivity, resource utilization, and deployment issues. Coordinate production releases and emergency deployments with application teams. Maintain deployment and operational documentation.

Infrastructure & Platform Management: Work with Linux-based servers and virtualized infrastructure. Manage CPU, memory, storage, networking, DNS, certificates, load balancers, and related infrastructure components. Collaborate with Network and Infrastructure teams on firewall rules, ACLs, routing, VPN, DNS, and connectivity. Support integration with databases, middleware, APIs, monitoring platforms, and external services. Ensure capacity planning for clusters and application workloads.

Monitoring, Logging & Performance: Implement and maintain monitoring and alerting for clusters, nodes, containers, and applications using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK/EFK stacks. Monitor CPU, memory, disk, network, pod health, application performance, and cluster capacity. Analyze logs and metrics to identify recurring issues and performance bottlenecks. Establish alerts and operational dashboards.

Security & Compliance: Apply Kubernetes and container security best practices. Manage RBAC, service accounts, secrets, certificates, and access controls. Ensure patching and hardening of containers and cluster components. Coordinate with Information Security for vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and remediation. Maintain compliance with organizational security and regulatory requirements. Keep audit trails and access/deployment records.

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity: Support configuration and maintenance of disaster recovery Kubernetes/container environments. Develop and test backup, restore, failover, and recovery procedures. Participate in DR drills and document recovery processes. Ensure synchronization of application and platform configurations between primary and DR environments.

Incident & Problem Management: Provide L2/L3 technical support for cluster and application infrastructure issues. Participate in incident management, root cause analysis, problem management, and service restoration. Investigate production outages and deliver detailed root cause analysis. Implement permanent fixes and preventive measures for recurring incidents. Engage in planned maintenance and emergency activities.

Required Qualifications

A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field is preferred. Relevant DevOps or Kubernetes certifications such as CKA or CKAD are advantageous. Candidates should possess strong analytical and troubleshooting skills along with effective communication and coordination abilities.

Preferred Qualifications and Experience

Candidates with 3 to 5 years of relevant DevOps or system administration experience, including 2 to 3 years of hands-on Kubernetes/container platform management, are preferred. Experience supporting business-critical production applications in enterprise environments is highly desirable. Familiarity with production deployments, incident management, monitoring, and disaster recovery is a plus.

Technical Skills

Proficiency with GitLab CI/CD or Jenkins, Helm, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK logging platforms, Redis, middleware technologies, NGINX/Ingress controllers, Ansible, Terraform, and cloud platforms such as Huawei Cloud, AWS, Azure, or GCP is expected. Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Linux administration, Docker/container technologies, Git workflows, CI/CD pipelines, YAML, Kubernetes manifests, networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS, Load Balancing), shell scripting, and troubleshooting distributed containerized environments is essential.

This role offers the opportunity to work in a dynamic environment supporting critical business applications with a focus on innovation, security, and operational excellence.