Software Engineering Group Manager - Kubernetes Container as a Service Platform

Position Overview

At PNC, our people are our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage in the markets we serve. We are all united in delivering the best experience for our customers. We work together each day to foster an inclusive workplace culture where all of our employees feel respected, valued and have an opportunity to contribute to the company’s success.

As a Software Engineering Group Manager within PNC's Technology organization, you can based in Pittsburgh PA, Strongsville OH, Birmingham AL, Phoenix AZ, Denver CO or Dallas TX (preferred).

PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position.

We are looking for an accomplished and experienced Software Engineering Group Mgr. leader to lead the strategy, architecture, and operational excellence of Kubernetes-based container platforms. The successful candidate will be instrumental in shaping the strategic direction, defining the roadmap, and facilitating adoption of container hosting platforms across both on-premises and cloud environments.

A Software Engineering Group Mgr. is a senior-level leadership role focused on designing, managing, and evolving container-based platforms (Kubernetes ecosystems) for internal or external users. This role serves as a link between technical engineering teams and business stakeholders, ensuring scalable infrastructure solutions are developed, launched, and widely adopted while prioritizing user experience.

Key Responsibilities:
Strategy & Architecture: Define the roadmap for container platforms (Kubernetes) and container-as-a-service (CaaS) to support enterprise workloads.
Platform Leadership: Design, deploy, and manage highly available, secure, and scalable containerized infrastructure.
Technical Leadership: Responsible for overseeing the product development process, collaborating with engineering to convert market requirements into technical specifications for container runtime, security, and orchestration. Guarantees developer usability through self-service options, APIs, and clear documentation. Promotes widespread adoption among engineering teams and provides mentorship as well as guidance to engineers.
Customer & Market Insight: Represents customers, studies industry trends, and informs product development and adoption.
Performance Optimization: Oversees product metrics to enhance the performance, usability, and reliability of containerized workloads across various environments.
Architecture & Design: Develop and set standards for container orchestration systems such as Kubernetes. Establish best practices for CI/CD pipelines, Microservices deployment, and Observability—including logging, monitoring, and tracing. Guarantee robust high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability.
Security & Compliance: Enforce container security best practices, scan images, secure runtime, enforce policies, and meet enterprise standards.
Operational Excellence: Partner with DevOps, security, and networking teams to optimize CI/CD pipelines, container runtime environments, and infrastructure-as-code (IaC).
Cost Optimization: Enhance cluster efficiency and resource management, minimize on-prem / cloud expenses through effective container orchestration, and strengthen system performance and reliability in accordance with SLOs/SLAs.

Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience) preferred
• 10+ years in technology with extensive experience leading Container Platform Engineering teams, preferred. Including Architecture/Software Engineer experience in an agile software product development environment. Advanced level understanding of customer experience
• 10+ years of expert-level knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI), public cloud providers, and platform engineering domains preferred.
• Experience in Agile software development environments, preferably with developer platform products.
• Strong background in Kubernetes, container orchestration, and DevOps tooling (e.g., Helm, ArgoCD, Jenkins, GitOps).
• Familiarity with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-prem solutions (OpenShift, bare-metal Kubernetes, etc.)
• Proven ability to build technical strategy and lead in a matrixed organization.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to present complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams and manage multiple stakeholders effectively.

Preferred Skills:
• Kubernetes Expertise: Strong understanding of Kubernetes cluster architecture, workload orchestration, networking, RBAC, and security best practices.
Hybrid-Cloud & On-Prem Platforms: Hands-on knowledge of hybrid and multi-cloud environments and experience integrating Kubernetes with enterprise systems.
Agile Practices: Deep experience with Agile methodologies and backlog/project management tools (e.g., Jira, Rally, ADO).

Licenses and Certifications:
• Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKAD, or CKS) strongly preferred
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or SAFe POPM (Preferred)
• Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP) a plus

PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position.PNC is an in-office company that fosters a supportive culture where employees can thrive and achieve balance. We encourage candidates to connect with their recruiter and hiring manager to understand workplace expectations and ensure the role aligns with their goals.PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position.

Job Description

• Manages multiple development projects, development groups and/or application support functions for a major business segment.
• Oversees the development and implementation of multiple, complex, organization-wide systems .
• Allocates and ensures resource arrangements during the application development life cycle .
• Maintains relationships with clients to ensure the implementation quality of application systems .
• Provides solutions or recommendations on complicated technology issues for application development and implementation .

PNC Employees take pride in our reputation and to continue building upon that we expect our employees to be:

• Customer Focused - Knowledgeable of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and able to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions.
• Managing Risk - Assessing and effectively managing all of the risks associated with their business objectives and activities to ensure they adhere to and support PNC's Enterprise Risk Management Framework.

PNC also has fundamental expectations of our people managers. As a manager of talent in PNC, you will be expected to:

• Include Intentionally - Cultivates diverse teams and inclusive workplaces to expand thinking.
• Live the Values - Role models our values with transparency and courage.
• Enable Change - Takes action to drive change and innovation that will transform our business.
• Achieve Results - Takes personal ownership to deliver results. Empowers and trusts others in decision making.
• Develop the Best - Raises the bar with every talent decision and guides the achievement of all employees and customers.

Qualifications

Successful candidates must demonstrate appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities for a role. Listed below are skills, competencies, work experience, education, and required certifications/licensures needed to be successful in this position.

Preferred Skills

Building High Performance Team, Communication, Project Management, Quality Assurance (QA), Software Development, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Stakeholder Management, System Designs, Team Collaboration, Team Leadership, Technical Architecture, Version Control

Competencies

Application Delivery Process, Application Development (Client/Server), Application Development (Object-Oriented), Application Development Tools, Application Localization and Internationalization, IT Environment, Software Process Improvement (SPI)

Work Experience

Roles at this level typically require a university / college degree. Higher level education such as a Masters degree, PhD, or certifications is desirable. Industry-relevant experience is typically 8+ years. At least 5 years of prior management experience is typically required. Proven leadership experience with a moderate to large scope of responsibility is required. In lieu of a degree, a comparable combination of education, job specific certification(s), and experience (including military service) may be considered.

Education

Bachelors

Certifications

No Required Certification(s)

Licenses

No Required License(s)

Language Assessments

No Required or Preferred Language Assessments

Pay Transparency

Base Salary: $146,300.00 – $326,040.00Salaries may vary based on geographic location, market data and on individual skills, experience, and education. This role is incentive eligible with the payment based upon company, business and/or individual performance.

Application Window

Generally, this opening is expected to be posted for two business days from 10/26/2026, although it may be longer with business discretion.

Benefits

PNC offers a comprehensive range of benefits to help meet your needs now and in the future. Depending on your eligibility, options for full-time employees include: medical/prescription drug coverage (with a Health Savings Account feature), dental and vision options; employee and spouse/child life insurance; short and long-term disability protection; 401(k) with PNC match, pension and stock purchase plans; dependent care reimbursement account; back-up child/elder care; adoption, surrogacy, and doula reimbursement; educational assistance, including select programs fully paid; a robust wellness program with financial incentives.In addition, PNC generally provides the following paid time off, depending on your eligibility: maternity and/or parental leave; up to 11 paid holidays each year; 9 occasional absence days each year, unless otherwise required by law; between 15 to 25 vacation days each year, depending on career level; and years of service.

To learn more about these and other programs, including benefits for full time and part-time employees, visit pncthrive.com.

Disability Accommodations Statement

If an accommodation is required to participate in the application process, please contact us via email at [email protected]. Please include “accommodation request” in the subject line title and be sure to include your name, the job ID, and your preferred method of contact in the body of the email. Emails not related to accommodation requests will not receive responses.  Applicants may also call 877-968-7762 and say "Workday" for accommodation assistance. All information provided will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

At PNC we foster an inclusive and accessible workplace.  We provide reasonable accommodations to employment applicants and qualified individuals with a disability who need an accommodation to perform the essential functions of their positions.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)

PNC provides equal employment opportunity to qualified persons regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, veteran status, or other categories protected by law.

This position is subject to the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA) and, for any registered role, the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008 (SAFE Act) and/or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which prohibit the hiring of individuals with certain criminal history.

California Residents

Refer to the California Consumer Privacy Act Privacy Notice to gain understanding of how PNC may use or disclose your personal information in our hiring practices.