Staff Site Reliability Engineer - Kubernetes

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real‑world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

This is an opportunity to do career‑defining work. We’re all in on this mission. If you are too, let’s talk.

Workforce Identity Cloud

Okta Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) provides easy, secure access for your workforce so you can focus on other strategic priorities – reducing costs and doing more for your customers.

If you like to be challenged and have a passion for solving large‑scale automation, testing, and tuning problems, we would love to hear from you. The ideal candidate exemplifies the ethics of, "If you have to do something more than once, automate it" and can rapidly self‑educate on new concepts and tools.

Position Overview

The Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) will play a key role in building and managing Kubernetes platforms that support cloud‑native applications and services. This position focuses on architecting and managing reliable, scalable, and secure Kubernetes‑based platforms on AWS, ensuring high availability and performance while optimizing costs and automation. The ideal candidate will have hands‑on experience with AWS infrastructure, Kubernetes platform creation, Helm charts, Karpenter scaling, and Istio service mesh.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain highly available, scalable, and fault‑tolerant Kubernetes platforms. Ensure clusters are optimized for production workloads, providing high resilience and operational efficiency.
• Build, manage, and optimize AWS cloud infrastructure, including EKS, ECS, S3, VPCs, RDS, IAM, and more. Implement best practices for cost management, scaling, and security within AWS.
• Utilize Helm to automate and streamline the deployment of applications and services to Kubernetes clusters. Create, maintain, and manage Helm charts for production‑ready deployments.
• Implement and manage Karpenter to dynamically scale Kubernetes clusters in response to workload demands.
• Configure and manage Istio to provide service‑to‑service communication, security, and observability within the Kubernetes clusters. Enable fine‑grained traffic management, service discovery, and policy enforcement.
• Automate the deployment, scaling, and management of infrastructure and applications. Work with CI/CD pipelines to ensure a seamless flow from development to production with minimal downtime.
• Respond to incidents, troubleshoot, and resolve system issues related to performance, availability, and security in a timely and effective manner.
• Design and implement secure cloud infrastructure with appropriate access controls, network security, and compliance frameworks.
• Create and maintain detailed documentation for Kubernetes platform setup, operational procedures, and best practices. Promote knowledge sharing across teams.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience with Kubernetes and Helm.
• 4+ years of experience with Terraform.
• 5+ years of experience with AWS.
• Experience with multi‑region cloud environments.
• Proven experience with AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFormation, IAM, etc.) and solid understanding of cloud‑native architectures.
• Strong expertise in Kubernetes platform creation, management, and optimisation (e.g., setting up highly available clusters, networking, and storage).
• Hands‑on experience with Helm for Kubernetes application deployment and management.
• Practical experience with Karpenter for dynamic scaling of Kubernetes clusters and optimising resource usage. Expertise in managing and securing Istio for service mesh, including traffic management, security, and observability features.
• Proficiency in CI/CD pipelines and automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab, CircleCI, Terraform, Ansible, Spinnaker). Strong scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, or Go for infrastructure management and platform automation.
• Experience with monitoring, logging, and alerting tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch, and ELK Stack.

Preferred Qualifications

• Understanding of security best practices for cloud platforms and Kubernetes (e.g., RBAC, encryption, and compliance frameworks).
• Familiarity with Docker and containerization principles.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent professional experience).
• Certifications (Preferred): CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer), or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer.

Additional Requirements

• This position requires the ability to access federal environments and/or have access to protected federal data. As a condition of employment for this position, the successful candidate must be able to submit documentation establishing U.S. Person status (e.g. a U.S. Citizen, National, Lawful Permanent Resident, Refugee, or Asylee) upon hire.
• Requires in‑person onboarding and travel to our San Francisco, CA HQ office or our Chicago office during the first week of employment.

Salary and Benefits

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between $194,000 and $267,000 USD. For candidates located in California (excluding the San Francisco Bay area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington, the range is $174,000 to $214,000 USD.

Okta offers equity, bonus, and benefits including health, dental, vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. For more information, see https://rewards.okta.com/us.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

For reasonable accommodation, please use the appropriate request form.

Notice for New York City applicants: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT) as defined by New York City Local Law 144. If you are residing in New York City, please refer to the NYC AEDT Notice.

Okta is committed to complying with applicable data privacy and security laws and regulations. For more information, see https://www.okta.com/legal/personnel-policy/.