Red Hat OpenShift Engineer

Job Description:: This is a job description for a Red Hat OpenShift Architect with proven experience migrating workloads from VMware (vSphere/onprem VMs) to Red Hat OpenShift (Kubernetes). The role focuses on solution architecture, migration planning and execution, platform automation, and ensuring secure, scalable, and highly available OpenShift-based platforms. Role Overview

• Lead architecture, design, and implementation of enterprise OpenShift platforms.
• Execute migration strategies for moving applications and data from VMware virtual machines and traditional architectures to containerized OpenShift environments.
• Work with cross-functional teams (Dev, Security, Networking, Storage) to deliver migration projects with minimal disruption and measurable business value.

Key Responsibilities

• Experience in end-to-end OpenShift platform architectures (high-availability, multi-AZ, multi-cluster, hybrid cloud).
• Create migration strategies (lift-and-shift, replatform, refactor) for VMware-hosted workloads to OpenShift, including phased migration plans and cutover/rollback procedures.
• Lead proofs-of-concept (PoCs), pilot migrations, and production migrations; validate performance, resilience, and security post-migration.
• Build automation for platform provisioning and day‑2 operations using Infrastructure as Code (Ansible, Terraform, OpenShift Ansible/Installer, Operators).
• Define networking, storage, and security models for OpenShift (CNI selection, persistent storage via CSI, RBAC, network policies, service mesh considerations).
• Integrate CI/CD and GitOps pipelines (e.g., Jenkins/GitLab/ArgoCD) for automated app delivery to OpenShift.
• Establish observability and logging (Prometheus, Grafana, EFK/OLM) and implement backup/restore strategies (Velero or equivalent).
• Collaborate with VMware/vSphere teams to assess virtualization inventories, dependencies, and create migration timelines.
• Produce architecture artifacts: diagrams, runbooks, migration playbooks, capacity and cost estimates, and operational runbooks for SRE teams.
• Mentor engineering teams on containerization best practices, operator patterns, and cloud-native application design.
• Ensure compliance with security, governance, and regulatory requirements during and after migration.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in enterprise infrastructure/cloud roles, with at least 3–5 years specifically designing and operating Red Hat OpenShift or Kubernetes platforms.
• Hands-on experience migrating applications and services from VMware/vSphere (on-prem) to OpenShift/Kubernetes.
• Strong knowledge of VMware stack: vSphere, vCenter, and familiarity with virtualization concepts, VM inventories, and dependency mapping.
• Expertise in OpenShift installation and configuration (IPI/UPI), cluster lifecycle, and operator model.
• Proficiency with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, OpenShift CLI/oc).
• Solid understanding of networking (CNI plugins, load balancing, DNS), persistent storage and CSI drivers, and storage backends (NFS, Ceph/Rook, SAN).
• Experience with CI/CD and GitOps integration for container deployments.
• Familiar with backup, migration, and application portability tools (e.g., Velero, Red Hat Migrations/operand tools, image registries).
• Strong scripting skills (Bash, Python) and familiarity with container tooling (Docker, Podman).
• Experience defining security posture for Kubernetes/OpenShift (RBAC, OPA/Gatekeeper, secrets management).
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and documentation skills.

Preferred / Nice-to-have

• Red Hat certifications: Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration, RHCE, or RHCA.
• Experience with data migration for stateful applications and databases.
• Prior experience running large-scale multi-cluster OpenShift environments and hybrid cloud connectivity (VPN, Direct Connect, ExpressRoute).

Success Metrics / KPIs

• Percentage of workloads successfully migrated within planned windows and with minimal downtime.
• Number of migrations completed per quarter and time-to-migration per application class.
• Post-migration application performance and availability compared to pre-migration baselines.
• Reduction in infrastructure cost or operational overhead after migration.
• Automation coverage for provisioning and day‑2 operations (percentage automated tasks).
• Number of runbooks and documentation items completed and validated by operations teams.

Deliverables

• Migration strategy document and phased migration roadmap.
• Architecture diagrams and sizing/capacity plans.
• Migration playbooks, cutover and rollback procedures.
• Automated deployment scripts and IaC modules.
• Operational runbooks for monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery.
• Post-migration validation and performance reports.

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