Kubernetes Platform Engineer (Controllers)

Description

The company behind the PlayStation brand is a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It makes hardware and runs network services used by more than 100 million people, and it also produces entertainment built on well-known intellectual properties.

The PlayStation team is pushing cloud gaming forward. The role is for a platform engineer who enjoys building Kubernetes-native systems and automation that run reliably at global scale, and who likes working on distributed systems problems.

The work supports a gaming experience for millions of players around the world.

Responsibilities

• Design and build Kubernetes controllers and operators that automate the lifecycle of platform services.
• Build and maintain the reconciliation logic that keeps distributed system state safe.
• Develop Kubernetes APIs and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) that give platform capabilities clean, maintainable interfaces.
• Help build the global workload placement system, which schedules work intelligently across Kubernetes clusters in public cloud and on-premises data centers.
• Create controllers and operators that handle provisioning, configuration, upgrades and lifecycle management of Kubernetes-based platform components across hybrid cloud environments.
• Work with platform and service teams on automation that makes large distributed systems easier to run.
• Improve the platform's reliability, scalability, observability and maintainability through careful engineering.
• Investigate production issues and take part in root cause analysis.

Requirements

• Solid grasp of Kubernetes architecture, lifecycle and core concepts, including workloads that run across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Experience developing in Go or another modern programming language. Interest in Go is welcome.
• Experience building software for Linux environments.
• Experience developing with Kubernetes, including controllers, operators or the Kubernetes API.
• Experience using Kubernetes in production.
• At least 3 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a willingness to learn new technologies.
• Understanding of Kubernetes reconciliation patterns and declarative system design, especially the principles of Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP).
• Familiarity with controller-runtime, Kubebuilder, Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), Common Expression Language (CEL) rules or other Kubernetes API extension mechanisms.
• Experience building or running distributed systems across public cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps workflows.
• Experience with bare metal, hybrid cloud or multi-cluster Kubernetes is highly desirable.
• Experience with Cluster API (CAPI), SIG Multicluster, Karmada or other Kubernetes ecosystem projects is a plus.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Comfortable working in a distributed engineering team across multiple time zones.
• Takes ownership of assigned work and sees it through to completion.
• Curious and pragmatic, eager to learn from teammates and share knowledge in return.
• Enjoys the engineering challenges of running software across globally distributed cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
• Cares about building reliable systems and improving the user experience.
• Contributions to open source projects, especially in the Kubernetes or CNCF ecosystem, are a plus.
• The company encourages applications from everyone and aims for an inclusive, diverse workplace.
• Sony Interactive Entertainment runs background checks at the offer stage for all new employees, which may include criminal background checks for some roles, and processes personal information for this purpose.