OpensShift Architect

Role Summary

The Enterprise OpenShift Architect is responsible for designing, implementing, and governing a production-grade Red Hat OpenShift platform hosted on Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines.

The role owns the end-to-end OpenShift ecosystem, including platform architecture, networking, storage, security, Advanced Cluster Management governance, automation, high availability, disaster recovery, the operating model, and application onboarding.

The architect will provide strategic and technical leadership for multi-cluster and multi-environment OpenShift deployments supporting enterprise workloads at scale.

Key Responsibilities:

Platform Architecture

• Define the enterprise OpenShift platform strategy and target-state architecture.
• Design OpenShift clusters across Production, Non-Production, DMZ, and Disaster Recovery environments.
• Define cluster segmentation, workload placement, and workload isolation strategies.
• Establish an Advanced Cluster Management-based multi-cluster architecture.
• Develop platform architecture standards, principles, and governance frameworks.

Azure Infrastructure Design

• Design the OpenShift hosting architecture within Azure Landing Zones.
• Define Azure subscriptions, virtual networks, peering, security zones, routing, and private connectivity.
• Design secure integration with enterprise identity, networking, monitoring, and security platforms.
• Ensure alignment with Azure architecture, resilience, security, and governance standards.

OpenShift Platform Design

• Design control-plane, infrastructure, and worker-node architecture.
• Define the control plane, application plane, and shared-services architecture.
• Design ingress, routing, container registry, observability, and service-mesh frameworks.
• Establish cluster sizing, scalability, performance, and capacity-planning models.
• Define platform standards for namespaces, operators, workloads, and shared services.

Multi-Cluster Governance

• Implement Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management governance and policy-management capabilities.
• Establish centralized lifecycle management across all OpenShift clusters.
• Define cluster provisioning, onboarding, configuration, compliance, and decommissioning frameworks.
• Standardize policies across Production, Non-Production, DMZ, and Disaster Recovery environments.
• Maintain visibility and governance across the enterprise cluster estate.

Security Architecture

• Design Microsoft Entra ID integration and Single Sign-On architecture.
• Define Role-Based Access Control, namespace governance, Security Context Constraints, and pod-security controls.
• Implement Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security frameworks.
• Establish image-security, vulnerability-management, compliance, and admission-control processes.
• Define secrets-management, certificate-management, and privileged-access controls.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise cybersecurity and regulatory requirements.

Storage and Data Services

• Define the enterprise storage strategy using Azure-native storage, Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files, OpenShift Data Foundation, or other approved solutions.
• Design persistent-storage architecture for enterprise workloads.
• Define data-protection, backup, recovery, replication, and disaster-recovery strategies.
• Implement backup and restoration capabilities for platform and application workloads.
• Establish storage performance, availability, security, and capacity standards.

Automation and Platform Engineering

• Design and implement the enterprise GitOps operating model.
• Develop Terraform- and Ansible-based platform automation.
• Standardize cluster deployment, configuration, upgrade, and lifecycle automation.
• Establish Platform-as-Code methodologies and reusable automation frameworks.
• Integrate platform automation with enterprise CI/CD pipelines and source-control platforms.
• Reduce manual intervention through repeatable and governed automation.

Operations and Production Readiness

• Define monitoring, logging, alerting, backup, patching, maintenance, and upgrade models.
• Establish platform service levels, operational controls, and support responsibilities.
• Develop operational runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and support procedures.
• Lead production-readiness assessments and architecture reviews.
• Coordinate operational handover to infrastructure, application, security, and support teams.
• Define incident, problem, change, capacity, and availability-management processes.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents and complex platform issues.

Application Onboarding

• Define application-onboarding standards and readiness criteria.
• Guide application teams on containerization, deployment, security, networking, storage, and observability requirements.
• Review application architecture for compatibility with the OpenShift platform.
• Establish reusable onboarding templates, pipelines, policies, and documentation.
• Support the migration and modernization of enterprise applications onto OpenShift.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Extensive experience designing and implementing enterprise Red Hat OpenShift platforms.
• Strong hands-on experience with OpenShift deployed on Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
• Proven experience with multi-cluster and multi-environment platform architecture.
• Strong knowledge of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management and Advanced Cluster Security.
• Advanced knowledge of Kubernetes architecture, container platforms, networking, storage, security, and observability.
• Strong experience with Azure Landing Zones, VNets, peering, private connectivity, identity, and security services.
• Demonstrated experience with Terraform, Ansible, GitOps, and infrastructure automation.
• Strong understanding of high availability, disaster recovery, backup, scalability, and production-readiness principles.
• Experience developing architecture documents, operating models, governance standards, and technical roadmaps.
• Strong stakeholder-management, communication, leadership, and problem-solving capabilities.

Preferred Certifications:

• Red Hat Certified Architect
• Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator
• Red Hat Certified OpenShift Application Developer
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator
• Terraform Associate
• Relevant cloud, security, or DevOps certifications