Sr. Platform Engineer

About vCluster Labs

We are a venture-backed tech startup striving to be the leading force in enabling platform engineers. We raised +$30M from top-tier VCs such as Khosla Ventures (first investor in OpenAI, GitLab, Stripe, Doordash) and are in a hyper-growth phase looking for motivated people to complement our team. Our headquarters are in San Francisco (Salesforce Tower), but our team is distributed around the globe and we have a remote-first work culture.

We're the company behind vCluster, an open-source technology for virtualizing Kubernetes (+10k GitHub stars). Open source is part of our DNA.

The adoption of our commercial product based on vCluster has grown extremely fast (multi-million dollar revenue) and our customer base includes some of the biggest companies in the world, including 6 Global Fortune 500 companies as well as some of the fastest-growing tech unicorns.

As a Sr. Platform Engineer at vCluster Labs, you aren't just maintaining infrastructure; you are the backbone of our engineering velocity. In this role, you will act as "Customer Zero" for our own products, building the internal platforms that enable our engineering teams to ship faster, securely, and more efficiently. You will have the unique opportunity to use vCluster to create cutting-edge internal services while providing critical feedback directly to our product teams.

As a Sr. Platform Engineer, your role will include:

• Infrastructure Management: Own and improve our multi-cloud infrastructure spread across AWS, GCP, and Digital Ocean. You will manage Kubernetes clusters, handle patching, manage access, and enhance to ensure our tooling has robust alerts and metrics.

• CI/CD Optimization: Drive the improvement of GitHub CI pipelines. You will be responsible for creating secure, repeatable testing environments and automating pipeline updates to streamline the developer experience.

• Internal Services Architecture: Architect and host infrastructure for engineering development, including internal services and vCluster-specific platforms (e.g., loft.rocks, vCluster Cloud). You will empower engineers to build pipelines securely through education and tooling.

• Customer Zero: Act as the first and most critical user of our products. You will push vCluster features to their limits to create useful internal tools, discovering bugs and providing feedback to Engineering to shape the future of our software.

• Terraform Automation: Focus on automating updates and managing infrastructure as code using Terraform Spacelift. You will give the team the ability to create infrastructure on demand, ensuring scalability and consistency.

• Execution: Manage a variety of Kanban tasks via Linear, ranging from improving observability to handling GitHub policy requests, release engineering, and access management.

This role could be a fit for you if you bring:

• Experience: You have 5+ years Platform Engineering or DevOps, with a focus on modern, cloud-native technologies.

• Technical Fluency: You are an expert in HCL and Terraform Modules, and you have deep experience administering Kubernetes clusters.

• Pipeline Mastery: You have extensive "must-have" experience with GitHub Pipelines and know how to optimize them for speed and security.

• Cloud Proficiency: You have hands-on experience managing and deploying in public clouds, specifically AWS or GCP.

• Modern Tech Mindset: You thrive in environments that reject legacy tech. You want to work with a modern stack where you can pick your own hardware and solve a variety of problems, from pipelines to internal services.

Bonus points for:

• Automation Skills: Experience writing automation scripts with Bash or Python.

• Programming: Proficiency in Go or Python is a significant plus.

• Kubernetes Depth: Relevant certifications such as CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) or experience writing Kubernetes Operators.

• Documentation: Basic experience writing technical documentation and a willingness to build AI Automation in the documentation tocontribute to our knowledge base.

• Tools: Familiarity with Linear for task management.

Benefits

We offer the following benefits:

• Competitive Salary: We offer a competitive compensation package, including equity.

• Platinum-Level Insurance: Health, dental, vision, and life Insurance, including plans for you and eligible dependents (benefits vary depending on country).

• Flexible Working Schedule: You have a doctor’s appointment or need to head to the supermarket to get groceries at 2pm? We won’t have an issue with that. To us, results matter more than clocking in and out at the same time every day.

• Workplace Flexibility: We’re very flexible about where you work. We know things can change in life and we’re happy to adjust the work environment for you along the way.

Why join a startup like vCluster Labs?

Since we are a fast-moving startup, you will not be number 14,589 in our company but rather become an essential part of our team right from the start:

• Fast Application Process: We will typically get back to you within a week. No need to polish your resume for us. Just send us some links (e.g. LinkedIn, etc.), answer a few questions about your previous experiences, and hop on a quick Zoom call with one of our team members to see if you’re a good fit. We will respond quickly and make hiring decisions within days rather than months.

• Open-Minded Work Environment: You can always speak your mind - no company politics or unnecessary formalities. We are operating in a lean, honest, and efficient way and we are looking for different perspectives, constructive feedback and creative, motivated people who want to make a difference.

• Grow With The Company: We are a small company right now but we are growing incredibly fast because we work on something that has a lot of value to engineering teams in large enterprises. Joining vCluster Labs early will give you the chance to advance much faster to the next step on the career ladder than in any larger company.

• Responsibility From Day 1: You will see right from the start that your work will immediately have an impact in our company and you can shape the future of this company together with the rest of our team. Grow with us and benefit from being part of this journey from the start.

Culture & Values

At vCluster Labs, we value and stand for:

1. Open Source, Open Mind: We are actively contributing to and maintaining open-source projects. Internally, we foster meritocracy — the strongest ideas win, no matter who or where they come from.

2. Build Tomorrow’s Standards, Intentionally: We don't just ship software; we define the state-of-the-art of tomorrow. We are fearless in tearing down old approaches to build something better, but we are disciplined in how we do it because we know our users rely on our technology to run mission-critical infrastructure platforms.

3. Create Wow: We measure success by the experience we generate, both inside and outside the company. For our customers, this means impressive speed and intuitive experiences. For our team, this means going the extra mile to support one another and to continuously drive each other to new heights.

4. Own the Outcome: We understand that our responsibility doesn't end when a task is checked off; it ends when the value is delivered. We connect our daily individual actions to the broader success of the company and our customers.

vCluster Labs provides equal opportunities for all candidates. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive work environment for everyone who becomes part of our team. We are also actively promoting measures to reduce bias throughout our hiring process to ensure that everyone gets the same opportunities.

Compensation Range: €80K - €110K