Senior Platform Engineer (Kubernetes / GitOps / Platform Security)

We are seeking a seasoned Senior Platform Engineer with production-level cloud-native experience who has fully owned major platform migrations at scale. This role requires deep, hands-on mastery of Kubernetes operations, GitOps delivery, service mesh architecture, platform security, and full-stack observability, along with a proven ability to define paths forward, validate them with stakeholders, and drive them to completion without relying on step-by-step instructions.

Feel free to work remotely from anywhere across Latvia or connect with colleagues at our Riga office. Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Lead Platform Architect to shape and execute core platform workstreams, including GitOps delivery, observability, security postures, data operators, and the Istio mesh rollout
• Design and implement GitOps pipelines via ArgoCD, establishing promotion paths, drift detection, self-healing mechanisms, and secure secrets management
• Configure and optimize the observability stack while actively defining SLOs, SLIs, and actionable alerts
• Drive the Istio service mesh rollout, implement phased adoption, secure mTLS policies, advanced traffic management, and proactive troubleshooting
• Harden platform security layers, ensure robust implementation of Coraza WAF at the ingress, HashiCorp Vault for secrets/PKI, and baseline Kubernetes security policies
• Manage stateful workload migrations, plan and execute cutovers for PostgreSQL and Kafka with precise validation routines and bulletproof rollback strategies
• Author operational documentation and runbooks, establish gold standards for Day-2 operations, incident response playbooks, and customer handovers
• Mentor the engineering team, share specialized knowledge in Kubernetes, GitOps, observability, and platform security to elevate overall team capabilities
• Maintain a continuous feedback loop with the Lead Platform Architect to surface risks, propose pragmatic solutions, and refine migration strategies dynamically

Requirements

• 5+ years of production-level cloud-native experience with full ownership of major platform migrations at scale
• Expertise in Kubernetes multi-environment cluster design, advanced scheduling, CNI/NetworkPolicies/DNS networking, RBAC/Pod Security Standards, and complex troubleshooting
• Proficiency in Helm chart authoring, release lifecycle governance, chart testing, and establishing organization-wide Helm standards
• Skills in the Kubernetes Operator pattern, with hands-on experience in PostgreSQL Operator (HA, failover, backup/PITR, PgBouncer) and Strimzi (broker configurations, topic/user operators, rolling updates, cruise control)
• Background in production-scale ArgoCD ownership, including ApplicationSets, sync waves/windows, environment promotion, and CI/CD-to-GitOps migrations
• Deep experience in Istio service mesh migrations, covering traffic management, mTLS enforcement, AuthorizationPolicies, ingress/egress gateway setups, and mesh-level observability
• Knowledge of Coraza WAF, including rule/policy authoring using OWASP CRS, integration at the Istio ingress/gateway layer, and false-positive tuning for production environments
• Competency in HashiCorp Vault operations, Kubernetes auth method integrations, secret engines, and rotation/lease management
• Familiarity with Prometheus architecture, Grafana dashboards, OpenTelemetry tracing, log aggregation, and SRE fundamentals including SLO/SLI definition and error budgets
• Understanding of operator-driven PostgreSQL and Kafka migrations, including schema compatibility, consumer group offset management, MirrorMaker 2, and data validation/rollback strategies

We offer

• Engineering Heritage: Best-in-class experts sharing a culture of engineering excellence and tackling complex engineering challenges for over 30 years.
• Advanced Tech Stack: Innovative projects where you can apply or enhance your expertise in Cloud, Data, AI, and other emerging technologies.
• World-Class Clients: Work closely with 340+ of the Forbes Global 2000 on creating disruptive solutions that make a global impact.
• Professional Growth: Exceptional support for career development with comprehensive resources for upskilling or reskilling in pioneering practices.
• GenAI Community: Strong AI competencies with 600+ experts across 55+ locations driving GenAI-enabled transformation journeys.
• Entrepreneurial Culture: If you're passionate and dedicated to improving business transformation, we provide the support you need to bring your ideas to life.
• Hybrid Setup: The flexibility to work from any location in Latvia, whether it's your home or our office in Riga.
• Other Benefits: Additional vacation and trust days, private health insurance, Employee Stock Purchase Plan and more.

Salary range €3.8K-€5.7K gross, based on your experience and interview results. EPAM is a leading global provider of digital platform engineering and development services. For over 30 years, our team has helped leading brands navigate the waves of digital transformation, building solutions that help them stay competitive through constant market disruption.With offices in 55+ countries, EPAM has grown in Latvia to over 150+ talented innovators in 4 years. We foster creativity and unconventional ways of doing things, welcoming like-minded professionals to join us.