Kubernetes Engineer – Rancher / RKE2

Oivan is looking for an Intermediate Kubernetes Engineer to join our team in Dubai. You will provide on-site operational support for enterprise Kubernetes platforms built on SUSE Rancher and RKE2, keep day-to-day operations running smoothly, and help the customer's team become confident in using and operating Rancher. This role requires:

Strong, practical hands-on experience with Rancher and RKE2

Responsibilities

• We offer you the opportunity to apply and grow your skills with a diverse and geographically distributed technology team, working directly with customers on mission-critical Kubernetes platforms.
• The following are the main duties you will do as part of this job:
• Provide on-site operational support for Rancher-managed RKE2 clusters at the customer's premises
• Carry out day-to-day operations: cluster health checks, node and workload management, namespace and project administration, and user access through Rancher RBAC
• Troubleshoot and resolve platform issues (nodes, pods, networking, DNS, ingress, storage and certificates), and escalate with clear findings when needed
• Operate Rancher Manager: managing downstream clusters, projects, users and roles, the app catalog and Helm-based deployments
• Support RKE2 cluster installation, configuration, scaling and routine maintenance, including on-premise and air-gapped environments
• Assist with planned Kubernetes, RKE2 and Rancher upgrades, and with etcd snapshots and

Rancher backup and restore

• Monitor platforms using 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, hands-on walkthroughs and technical guidance to customer and internal teams on Rancher usage and operations
• Create and maintain runbooks, operational procedures and platform documentation
• Work closely with customer stakeholders and the wider Oivan and SUSE teams
• Debugging with kubectl, events, logs, crictl and node-level tools

Requirements

• On-site operational support and day-to-day platform activities

Solid Kubernetes troubleshooting and issue resolution skills

• Knowledge transfer and technical guidance to the team on Rancher usage and operations
• This is a hands-on, customer-facing role. Candidates must be able to show real experience operating Rancher and RKE2 clusters, not only theoretical knowledge.
• Our ideal candidate will fulfill the following requirements:
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in IT, with 2+ years operating Kubernetes in production

Strong practical experience with Rancher and RKE2

• Rancher Manager day-2 operations: downstream clusters, projects, RBAC, catalog and apps
• RKE2 server and agent nodes, config.yaml, embedded containerd, etcd and air- gapped installation

Diagnosing networking, DNS, storage, scheduling and certificate issues

• Working knowledge of Helm; exposure to GitOps (Rancher Fleet, Argo CD or Flux) is a plus
• Good Linux administration (SLES / SLE Micro, RHEL or Ubuntu) and networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, TLS)
• Familiarity with Prometheus, Grafana and centralized logging
• Ability to explain technical topics clearly and coach others (knowledge transfer, training, documentation)
• Experience working on-site in on-premise enterprise environments
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Preferred

• Bash scripting; Ansible or Terraform is a plus
• English (advanced); Arabic language skills are an advantage
• SUSE Virtualization (Harvester), SUSE Storage (Longhorn) and SUSE Security (NeuVector)
• CNI knowledge: Canal, Calico or Cilium
• Private registries and air-gapped image management (e.g., Harbor)
• Backup tooling such as Velero
• Exposure to CI/CD tooling (GitLab CI, Jenkins or GitHub Actions)
• Preferred Certifications
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• SUSE Rancher certification (Administrator or Deployment Specialist)
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)