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United Launch Alliance

Rockets for national security and NASA

Cloud Architect 5

Platform EngineeringUpdated on Nov 14
Full-timeCentennial, CO, USA

About the Job

Requirements

  • A bachelor's degree in a STEM field from an accredited college or university is required.
  • At least 8 years of cloud engineering or infrastructure experience, including hands-on production Kubernetes administration, is required.
  • Deep expertise with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) or equivalent managed Kubernetes platforms is required.
  • Strong proficiency in cloud networking, service mesh concepts, and core Kubernetes networking models is required.
  • Demonstrated experience implementing security controls such as role-based access control (RBAC), Open Policy Agent (OPA)/Gatekeeper, pod security standards, and secrets-management systems is required.
  • Hands-on experience with Container Storage Interface (CSI) drivers, persistent storage architectures, and backup/restore design is required.
  • Proficiency with observability stacks including Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing is required.
  • The candidate must be able to lead incident response, diagnose complex cluster issues, and ensure reliability in mission-critical environments.
  • The candidate must be able to coach and mentor junior and mid-level engineers.
  • Applicants must be U.S. Persons as defined in ITAR 22 CFR 120.62.

Responsibilities

  • Govern and maintain Kubernetes clusters supporting engineering workloads, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) environments, and CloudOps automation.
  • Design and manage cluster topology, including nodes, node groups, autoscaling rules, taints and tolerations, and workload affinity.
  • Own cross-cluster networking and service mesh architecture, including ingress, load balancers, and Container Network Interface (CNI) strategy.
  • Define and enforce Kubernetes security posture, including RBAC models, OPA/Gatekeeper policies, pod security standards, and secrets-management approaches.
  • Architect and manage storage strategies involving CSI drivers, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)/Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provisioning, persistent volumes, and backup/restore workflows.
  • Drive observability practices using Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing systems.
  • Lead incident response and reliability engineering for EKS clusters, addressing node failures, scheduler issues, cluster upgrades, and workload migration.
  • Coach CloudOps team members to strengthen cluster operations, readiness, automation, and troubleshooting capabilities.
  • Integrate Kubernetes platforms with mission program workflows, toolchains, and specialized workloads.

Desired Qualifications

  • Experience operating Kubernetes in multi-enclave or regulated/governed environments is preferred.
  • Deep knowledge of Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud architecture, including virtual private cloud (VPC) design, identity and access management (IAM) security, EKS internals, and cloud-native networking, is preferred.
  • Familiarity with GitOps workflows and declarative deployment systems such as ArgoCD or Flux is preferred.
  • A strong background in automation using Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or Python is preferred.
  • Experience integrating Kubernetes systems with complex engineering toolchains or mission workloads is preferred.
  • Prior experience leading reliability engineering, modernization efforts, or cloud platform governance is preferred.
  • Contributions to CloudOps operating models, cluster standards, or enterprise governance frameworks are preferred.

About the Company

United Launch Alliance

Rockets for national security and NASA

ULA builds launch vehicles for national security, NASA and commercial space missions. Its rockets are designed to reach challenging and distant orbits and deliver highly accurate payload insertions, offering wide orbital flexibility for different mission profiles. The company’s approach centers on providing reliable, direct-to-orbit capabilities tailored to meet customers’ needs for secure national missions, space agency programs, and commercial launches. The goal is to expand access to space by offering dependable, precise launches that can place payloads into the specific orbits required by each mission.

Company size
1,001-5,000
Company stage
Debt Financing
Total funding
$1.6B
Headquarters
Centennial, CO
Founded
2006

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