Principal Linux Systems Engineer

Prestigious Financial Institution is currently seeking a Principal Linux Systems Engineer with strong Kubernetes experience. Candidate will lead the design, automation, and scalability of our global infrastructure that powers mission-critical financial applications. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in Linux systems, Kubernetes orchestration, and modern development practices, and thrives in high-performance, regulated environments. As a senior technical leader, you will set architectural standards, mentor engineers, and drive platform reliability, observability, and security across hybrid cloud and on-prem environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve the firm’s container orchestration and compute platforms (Kubernetes, Incus/LXD, or hybrid systems) to support low-latency, high-availability financial applications.
• Define infrastructure-as-code (IaC) standards (Terraform, Pulumi, or similar) and ensure consistent, auditable deployments across environments.
• Lead the adoption of immutable infrastructure principles, secure baseline images, and reproducible environments (RHEL-based).
• Architect and implement CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and application deployment with an emphasis on developer experience and velocity.
• Partner with development, SRE, and security teams to ensure regulatory compliance, change control, and observability across all layers.
• Establish monitoring, logging, and metrics strategies (Prometheus, Loki, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, etc.) for production and pre-production systems.
• Drive performance tuning and capacity planning for large-scale, latency-sensitive services.
• Serve as a technical mentor and thought leader within the organization.
• Provide strategic input into infrastructure roadmap, vendor selection, and emerging technology evaluations.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional experience in Linux systems engineering, ideally Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or derivatives.
• 5+ years of experience architecting and operating enterprise-grade Kubernetes platforms, capable of influencing technical direction, setting engineering standards, and serving as the technical authority for our Kubernetes strategy; must have hands-on experience deploying and managing clusters in bare-metal and on-premises environments (self-managed or cloud-native distributions such as EKS, GKE, or OpenShift).
• Strong proficiency with Python or Go for automation, tooling, and integration with APIs.
• Deep understanding of networking (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing) and security fundamentals (RBAC, TLS, secrets management).
• Expertise with CI/CD tooling (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Tekton, etc.) and artifact lifecycle management (Harbor, Pulp, or Artifactory).
• Proven experience with IaC (Terraform, Pulumi, or Ansible/SaltStack).
• Familiarity with container image lifecycle management, base image hardening, and SBOM compliance.
• Exposure to on-prem and hybrid cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or private cloud).
• Background in SRE practices, including SLI/SLO management, error budgets, and runbook automation.
• Experience with GitOps, event-driven automation, and declarative configuration management.
• Exceptional problem-solving ability and technical judgment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including documentation and presentation skills.
• Strong sense of ownership, accountability, and ability to influence without direct authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced certifications such as RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) or LFCE (Linux Foundation Certified Engineer) are a plus.
• Extensive experience working in cloud-based environments like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.
• Understanding of compliance frameworks (SOC2, ISO27001, or NIST).
• Experience supporting financial systems, trading platforms, or other latency-sensitive workloads.
• Experience in leading Agile teams and familiarity with Agile methodologies.