We are seeking a highly skilled Kubernetes DevOps Engineer to support and enhance enterprise-scale cloud infrastructure and platform services within an AWS environment. This is a 6+ month contract position based in Owings Mills, Maryland, with a hybrid schedule of two days onsite per week. Responsibilities Design, deploy, manage, and optimize large-scale Kubernetes (EKS) environments supporting mission-critical applications. Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform and Ansible to provision and manage AWS infrastructure. Build automation tools, platform integrations, and operational capabilities using Python and Linux scripting. Troubleshoot and resolve complex Kubernetes, AWS infrastructure, networking, and platform-related production issues. Support and enhance cloud-native platforms, including API management solutions (Apigee and AWS API Gateway) and Confluent Kafka services. Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps best practices to improve deployment reliability and operational efficiency. Partner with engineering teams to deliver scalable, reliable, and secure platform solutions. Monitor platform health and performance using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk. Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, on-call rotation, and operational support activities. Qualifications Required 5-7+ years of experience in Cloud Engineering, Platform Engineering, AWS DevOps, or Site Reliability Engineering roles. Deep hands-on expertise managing, supporting, and optimizing Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) and Kubernetes in large-scale production environments. 5+ years of Python and Linux shell scripting experience focused on automation and platform engineering. Strong experience designing and supporting AWS cloud infrastructure and cloud-native architectures. Advanced Infrastructure as Code (IaC) experience using Terraform and Ansible. Strong Python development experience focused on automation, platform engineering, integrations, and operational tooling. Experience implementing Kubernetes automation, deployment strategies, cluster scaling, performance tuning, and platform modernization initiatives. Strong knowledge of AWS services including EKS, EC2, IAM, ECR, CloudWatch, S3, Route53, VPC, Security Groups, and Load Balancers. Experience building and supporting CI/CD pipelines using GitLab, GitHub, Jenkins, ArgoCD, or related technologies. Advanced Linux systems administration experience and troubleshooting in production environments. Strong understanding of AWS networking, security, identity management, and cloud governance best practices. Experience with monitoring and observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk. Experience supporting highly available, enterprise-scale applications and platforms in hybrid multi-cloud environments. Preferred Experience modernizing or transforming Kubernetes/EKS platforms within large enterprise environments. Experience supporting API management platforms, including AWS API Gateway and Apigee. Exposure to Confluent Kafka or other event-driven messaging platforms. Kubernetes CKA certification or AWS Certifications (Associate Architect, DevOps Engineer, or Advanced Networking).