CONTRACT - Engineer, Kubernetes (NTD)

Nintendo Technology Development

The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo Switch™ system and the Nintendo 3DS™ family of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold more than 4.7 billion video games and more than 740 million hardware units globally, including Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS™ family of systems, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™, Nintendo GameCube™, Wii™ and Wii U™ systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names, such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda and Pokémon.  A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo Technology Development, based in Redmond, Washington, creates future hardware/software technology and researches North American-based technologies.

Nintendo is an equal opportunity employer. We offer a welcoming and inclusive environment in service to one another, our products, the diverse consumers we represent, and the communities we call home. We do all of this with kindness, empathy and respect for each other.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

As a Software Engineer, Kubernetes, you will be a key member of our internal platform team. This role is a unique blend of software development and DevOps principles, focusing on standardizing, stabilizing, and scaling our Kubernetes infrastructure. You will be responsible for both day-to-day operations and strategic long-term projects that will shape our platform's future.

• Document and Standardize: Audit our existing infrastructure and document our current setup, including its architecture, processes, and configurations. Your goal is to establish a clear and reproducible foundation.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Build out robust deployment scripts and IaC templates to enable the full reproduction of our Kubernetes infrastructure. You will leverage tools like Terraform to provision and manage our clusters, ensuring consistency and reliability.
• Platform Strategy: Investigate and propose solutions for a hybrid cloud strategy, evaluating the technical and business merits of different approaches.
• Implement Deployment Automation: Design and implement standardized, automated deployments using GitOps principles. This includes setting up and managing tools such as ArgoCD, Flux CD, Spinnaker, or Kargo to ensure a single source of truth for all deployments.
• Tooling & CI/CD: Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines to streamline developer workflows. You'll help manage application deployments using package or configuration managers like Helm or Kustomize.
• Cluster Management: Have hands-on experience with Kubernetes cluster management, which require familiarity with tools like kubeadm and kubectl.
• Cluster Environments: Have knowledge & experience working with Kubernetes clusters hosted either on-premise or in cloud environments.
• Networking & Service Mesh: Own the design, tuning, and troubleshooting of cluster networking end-to-end — including the CNI dataplane (Cilium), ingress/Gateway API, Envoy configuration, and service mesh. Diagnose and resolve complex throughput, latency, and connectivity issues spanning worker nodes, pod networking, and east-west traffic.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Work closely with peer groups and other teams, sharing your expertise and helping to build a deeper understanding of Kubernetes best practices across the organization.

SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS

• We are looking for a senior-level candidate with a software engineering background and hands-on experience with managing production Kubernetes environments.
• Experience: 3+ years of professional experience in software development, with at least 2 years of hands-on experience building and managing production-level Kubernetes infrastructure.
• Kubernetes Expertise: Strong understanding of Kubernetes architecture, including core concepts like Pods, Deployments, Services, RBAC and the API server.
• Cluster Management: Experience with using and managing Kubernetes clusters hosted on either on-premise hardware or in cloud environments such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Experience provisioning and managing infrastructure with tools like Terraform, specifically for Kubernetes clusters.
• Configuration Management: Proficiency with Helm (especially advanced usage) or Kustomize.
• GitOps: Experience with managing Kubernetes application & service deployment with tools such as ArgoCD, FluxCD, Spinnaker, Kargo, GitLab CI/CD, or GitHub Actions.
• Containerization: Expertise with Docker and other container runtimes like containerd.
• Kubernetes Networking: Hands-on production experience with Cilium (or closely transferable CNIs such as Calico or Canal, with demonstrated ability to ramp on Cilium/eBPF). Working knowledge of Linux networking fundamentals (iptables/nftables, conntrack, MTU, BGP) and Kubernetes traffic paths (kube-proxy or eBPF replacement, CoreDNS, ingress controllers, Gateway API).
• Service Mesh: Production experience with at least one service mesh — Istio (sidecar and/or ambient) preferred, Linkerd or Cilium Service Mesh acceptable — including mTLS, traffic policy, and Envoy-level troubleshooting (listeners, clusters, xDS, access logs).
• Experience with programming languages such as Go, Python, or C#.
• Knowledge of Linux & Windows systems, as well as scripting functionality for both.
• Direct experience with Terraform, kubeadm, and kubespray for cluster provisioning and management preferred.

Applicants must be legally eligible to work in the United States to be considered. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

This position is onsite in Redmond, WA, and not open to remote status at this time.