Staff Software Engineer - Kubernetes Platform Architecture

CloudFerro develops technologies used by European leaders in science and the space sector, including ESA, EUMETSAT, ECMWF, Mercator Ocean International, DLR, and EGI. The company builds a sovereign European cloud platform from scratch, offering a full PaaS stack based on Kubernetes and open source technologies, supporting serverless, managed databases, MLOps, and observability. The role involves working closely with Earth Observation sector projects and large data sets.

• Experienced architect or tech lead who has independently built a production-scale PaaS/CaaS platform based on Kubernetes from architecture to delivery.
• Experience designing and building distributed systems involving consensus, eventual consistency, partitioning, and fault tolerance.
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes internals: API server, scheduler, controller manager, etcd, admission controllers.
• Proficiency in Go and good knowledge of Python.
• Ability to translate architectural decisions into business language and define technical contracts between teams.
• Skilled use of AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Copilot) as part of daily engineering work.

Nice to have:

• Practical knowledge of CNCF ecosystem projects such as Cluster API, KNative, Cilium/Calico, ArgoCD/Flux, OPA/Kyverno, Crossplane, cert-manager, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry.
• Experience designing public APIs (REST/gRPC) for multi-tenant platforms.
• Contributor or maintainer of CNCF projects.
• Familiarity with projects like Kamaji, kube-dc, vCluster.

• Define and evolve the architecture of the entire PaaS platform.
• Choose tenancy and client isolation models.
• Collaborate technically with IaaS and Common Services teams to define contracts and interfaces.
• Define standards including API design, code conventions, and operator patterns.
• Mentor team members and review key technical decisions.
• Co-own the platform's GitOps pipeline.

Tools used include Confluence, GIT, Jira, Agile, and Scrum.