Senior Cloud Platform Engineer (GKE Specialist)

Location: Canada — Remote / Hybrid to Ottawa or Toronto

Employment Type: Fixed Term Contract, 12 months (with extension possibilities for multi year or transition to full time)

Clearance Requirement: Active Government of Canada Secret Clearance (Level II) — Mandatory

Client/Project Context: Public Sector / Enterprise Federal Contract

About the Role

Our client is seeking a Senior Cloud Platform Engineer with deep, production-grade expertise in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to architect, secure, and maintain critical cloud infrastructure. Operating within a highly regulated environment, you will bridge the gap between advanced container orchestration and Canada's strict federal security compliance framework (ITSG-33 / Protected B).

Key Responsibilities

• Cluster Architecture & Management: Design, deploy, and scale highly available GKE clusters (Standard and Autopilot) within Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Security & Compliance: Harden Kubernetes environments to meet Protected B / Medium Profile (PBMM) and ITSG-33 security baselines. Implement Kubernetes RBAC and network policies.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Build and maintain fully automated infrastructure deployments using Terraform.
• Traffic Management: Configure and manage service meshes (Istio / Anthos Service Mesh) for secure, observable microservices communication.
• CI/CD & DevSecOps: Integrate security scanning tools (vulnerability and static analysis) directly into automated deployment pipelines.

Must-Have Qualifications

• Google Cloud Platform: Minimum 3+ years of hands-on experience with GCP core networking (Shared VPCs, Cloud NAT, Cloud DNS) and IAM.
• Kubernetes / GKE: Deep understanding of K8s primitives, ingress controllers, private cluster architectures, and node pool management.
• Automation: Strong proficiency with Terraform for state management and infrastructure provisioning.
• Security Frameworks: Direct experience implementing Canadian data sovereignty and federal security standards (ITSG-33 or GC Cloud Security Profiles).
• Overall Experience: 5+ years in DevOps / Cloud Engineering, with at least 3 years dedicated to production Kubernetes environments.
• Clearance: Must explicitly hold an Active Secret Clearance (Level II) issued by PSPC or DND. Reliability status will not suffice.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with Google Anthos / Google Distributed Cloud.
• Familiarity with GitOps workflows (e.g., ArgoCD or Flux).
• Bilingualism (English and French) is an asset for stakeholder engagement.

Preferred Certifications

• Google Cloud Certified — Professional Cloud Architect or Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)