Senior DevOps Engineer (Contractor)

Job Overview

We are hiring a Senior DevOps Engineer (Contractor) to own and evolve our cloud infrastructure and deployment pipelines on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This is a hands-on senior IC role with responsibility for designing, operating, troubleshooting, and migrating infrastructure toward infrastructure-as-code (IaC). You will work closely with backend and platform engineers deploying Java, Kotlin, and Python services on Kubernetes (GKE). This role is outcome-driven and requires strong technical judgment, independence, and clear communication.

AI-First Infrastructure Engineering

We are intentionally building an AI-assisted engineering organization. AI tools are part of the daily workflow. This includes daily use of tools like Claude (Opus), Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot for AI-assisted generation of Terraform / OpenTofu, Helm charts, Kubernetes manifests, and automation scripts. You are responsible for reviewing, validating, and securing all AI-generated output.

Key Responsibilities

• Infrastructure & Cloud Operations: Design, operate, and maintain production infrastructure on GCP


• Manage and optimize GKE (Kubernetes) clusters, workloads, and networking


• Administer Cloud SQL (PostgreSQL) and Redis


• Own IAM roles, service accounts, and least-privilege access


• Manage DNS using OctoDNS across Google DNS and Cloudflare


• Ensure infrastructure security, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency


• Infrastructure as Code & Automation: Lead migration from bash-based provisioning to Terraform / OpenTofu


• Introduce and maintain Helm charts for Kubernetes deployments


• Eliminate click-ops through declarative, version-controlled infrastructure


• Review and improve Kubernetes manifests and deployment practices


• CI/CD & Deployment: Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Google Cloud Build and GitHub Actions


• Support automated builds, testing, and deployments for Java/Kotlin/Python services


• Improve deployment safety through rollout strategies, health checks, and rollback mechanisms


• Monitoring & Incident Response: Configure monitoring and alerting using Google Operations (Cloud Monitoring & Logging) and New Relic


• Act as an escalation point for production incidents


• Diagnose complex system issues using logs, metrics, and traces


• Improve observability and reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR)


• Security & Secrets: Manage secrets using Google Secret Manager, GKE Secrets, and Keeper


• Enforce secure configuration and credential rotation


• Partner with engineering to ensure secure runtime and deployment patterns

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or Cloud Infrastructure roles


• Strong hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform


• Deep production experience with Kubernetes (GKE preferred)


• Strong Linux and bash fundamentals


• Production experience with Terraform or OpenTofu


• Experience creating and maintaining Helm charts


• Experience with Cloud Build and/or GitHub Actions


• Strong troubleshooting skills in distributed systems


• Experience with PostgreSQL and Redis


• Solid understanding of IAM, DNS, networking, and cloud security

Nice to Have

• Multi-environment Kubernetes setups (dev/staging/prod)


• Experience with deployment strategies (blue/green, canary, rolling)


• GCP cost optimization experience


• Experience setting DevOps standards or mentoring engineers

What Success Looks Like

Infrastructure is reproducible, auditable, and managed via code. CI/CD pipelines are reliable, fast, and secure. Production incidents are diagnosable and resolved quickly. Manual operations steadily disappear in favor of automation. Engineering teams can deploy independently and safely.

Contractor & Location Notes

This is a contractor role, not full-time employment. Candidates must be based in LATAM. Senior-level ownership and communication are expected. Consistent overlap with US time zones is required.