Kubernetes Engineer – Rancher / RKE2

About the role

Oivan is looking for an intermediate Kubernetes engineer to join its team in Dubai. The role provides on-site operational support for enterprise Kubernetes platforms built on SUSE Rancher and RKE2, keeps day-to-day operations running smoothly and helps the customer's team become confident in using and operating Rancher. It is a hands-on, customer-facing position.

Key responsibilities

• Provide on-site operational support for Rancher-managed RKE2 clusters at the customer's premises
• Run day-to-day operations: cluster health checks, node and workload management, namespace and project administration, and user access via Rancher RBAC
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues (nodes, pods, networking, DNS, ingress, storage, certificates) and escalate with clear findings when needed
• Manage downstream clusters, projects, users and roles, the app catalog and Helm-based deployments in Rancher Manager
• Support RKE2 cluster installation, configuration, scaling and maintenance, including on-premise and air-gapped environments
• Assist with planned upgrades, etcd snapshots and Rancher backup and restore
• Monitor platforms with Rancher Monitoring (Prometheus and Grafana) and logging, and respond to alerts and incidents
• Apply security baselines such as the RKE2 CIS profile, Pod Security Admission and network policies
• Deliver knowledge transfer, walkthroughs and guidance to customer and internal teams
• Create and maintain runbooks, operational procedures and documentation

Required profile

• 3+ years of hands-on IT experience, with 2+ years operating Kubernetes in production
• Strong practical experience with Rancher and RKE2, including Rancher Manager day-2 operations and RKE2 server and agent nodes
• Solid Kubernetes troubleshooting skills, including debugging with kubectl, events, logs and crictl
• Ability to explain technical topics clearly and coach others
• Experience working on-site in on-premise enterprise environments
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
• Advanced English; Arabic is an advantage

Required skills

• Linux administration (SLES / SLE Micro, RHEL or Ubuntu) and networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, TLS)
• Working knowledge of Helm; exposure to GitOps (Rancher Fleet, Argo CD or Flux) is a plus
• Prometheus, Grafana and centralized logging
• Bash scripting; Ansible or Terraform is a plus
• Desirable: Harvester, Longhorn, NeuVector, Canal/Calico/Cilium, Harbor, Velero, GitLab CI/Jenkins/GitHub Actions, CKA or Rancher certifications