Backend Engineer (Google Kubernetes Engine)
Summary
Build and maintain a large-scale GKE-based platform, automating cloud-native infrastructure, container orchestration, and reliability engineering for backend services.
Assignment Overview
We are looking for an experienced Backend/Platform Engineer with strong expertise in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) to join the Core Infrastructure team.
Role Summary
The contractor will join the Core Infrastructure group within the Infra Product Area, supporting squads affected by internal organisational changes while enabling senior engineers to take on broader technical leadership responsibilities.
The role focuses on maintaining and improving the reliability, scalability and automation of the cloud-native infrastructure.
Core Infrastructure builds and operates the platform powering the backend services, including:
Container orchestration
Cloud infrastructure
Production networking
Observability
Reliability engineering
Service discovery
Cloud resource and storage management
The team operates one of the world's largest Google Cloud Platform environments, managing approximately 1.7 million compute cores, making this a highly technical role with large-scale distributed systems challenges.
Main Responsibilities
The core duties include:
Maintain and improve the cloud-native infrastructure reliability.
Enhance scaling and automation strategies.
Oversee the container orchestration processes.
Manage and optimize cloud infrastructure resources.
Support production networking operations.
Implement observability practices.
Conduct reliability engineering activities.
Facilitate service discovery and management.
Handle cloud resource and storage systems.
Key Requirements
7+ years of experience within Infrastructure Engineering, Platform Engineering or Cloud Engineering.
Strong backend engineering experience.
Solid programming or scripting skills in Java, Go, Python and/or Bash.
Extensive experience working with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Strong Kubernetes expertise.
Experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Helm.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automation.
Strong understanding of reliability engineering, performance optimisation and incident response.
Nice to Have
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).
Previous experience working on large-scale infrastructure platforms.
Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Soft Skills
Takes initiative and works proactively.
Strong ownership mindset.
Comfortable working independently in a remote-first environment.
Excellent collaboration and communication skills.
Priority will be given to candidates who demonstrate:
Strong Kubernetes expertise.
Cloud-native infrastructure experience.
Large-scale systems design.
Platform engineering background.
Other Details
Start/end: 2026-09-01 - 2026-12-31 with strong possibilities to extend.
Candidate must be based in Sweden, however no requirements on being onsite.