Senior Specialist, Linux Platform Engineer

Job Description:

Job Title: Senior Linux Platform Engineer – Red Hat, IPA Vault and Kubernetes

Department: Security Engineering

Reports To: Manager

Location: Bangalore, India

About the Team/Department:

The Infrastructure and Security Engineering team is responsible for building, securing, automating, and

supporting enterprise Linux platforms and cloud-native infrastructure. The team manages Red Hat

Enterprise Linux and other Linux distributions, identity and access services using IPA/FreeIPA, secrets

and certificate management through IPA Vault, and Kubernetes-based platforms supporting production

workloads.

Position Summary

We are looking for an experienced Linux Platform Engineer with strong hands-on expertise in Red Hat

Enterprise Linux, all major Linux distributions, IPA/FreeIPA, IPA Vault, and Kubernetes. The resource

will be responsible for Linux platform administration, identity and access integration, secrets and

certificate lifecycle support, automation, troubleshooting, hardening, and operational support for

business-critical infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer, maintain, patch, upgrade, and troubleshoot Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other

Linux server environments.

• Manage Linux services, storage, networking, LVM, filesystems, systemd, kernel parameters,

SSH, DNS, NTP, and performance tuning.

• Implement Linux security hardening, access controls, patch compliance, vulnerability

remediation, and audit readiness.

• Configure and support IPA/FreeIPA services including users, groups, hosts, HBAC rules, sudo

rules, Kerberos, LDAP, certificates, and access policies.

• Support IPA Vault usage for secure storage, retrieval, sharing, and lifecycle management of

secrets, keys, passwords, and certificates.

• Administer Kubernetes environments including cluster health, namespaces, workloads, RBAC,

secrets, config maps, storage, networking, upgrades, and troubleshooting.

• Automate repetitive administration tasks using shell scripting, Ansible, Python, or equivalent

automation tools.

• Participate in incident response, root cause analysis, change implementation, operational

documentation, and 24x7 support as required.

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands-on Linux administration experience in enterprise production environments.

• Strong experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux administration, patching, troubleshooting,

performance tuning, and system hardening.

• Working knowledge of multiple Linux distributions such as Red Hat, CentOS, Rocky Linux,

AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, or Oracle Linux.

• Hands-on experience with IPA/FreeIPA identity management, Kerberos, LDAP, DNS,

certificates, sudo rules, and host enrollment.

• Practical understanding of IPA Vault or equivalent secrets management for passwords, keys, and

certificates.

• Experience administering Kubernetes clusters, workloads, RBAC, secrets, storage, networking,

and troubleshooting application or infrastructure issues.

• Strong scripting and automation skills using Bash, Ansible, Python, or similar tools.

• Good understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, SSH, TLS certificates, firewalls, load balancers,

monitoring, logging, and ITIL/ITSM processes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA), Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE),

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), or equivalent certification.

• Experience with Red Hat Satellite, OpenShift, HashiCorp Vault, Helm, container runtimes,

CI/CD pipelines, and GitOps practices.

• Experience integrating Linux platforms with enterprise IAM, PAM, LDAP, SSO, certificate

authorities, and centralized logging solutions.

• Knowledge of monitoring and observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana,

ELK/OpenSearch, Loki, or similar platforms.

• Experience working in cloud or hybrid infrastructure environments such as AWS, Azure, GCP,

VMware, or OpenStack.

Core Competencies

• Deep technical troubleshooting and analytical problem-solving across Red Hat Enterprise Linux,

Linux services, Kubernetes platforms, and identity infrastructure.

• Strong ownership mindset for production stability, security compliance, platform availability,

and operational excellence.

• Hands-on execution capability with system administration, incident response, root cause

analysis, patching, hardening, upgrades, and change implementation.

• Security-first approach to access management, secrets handling, certificate lifecycle

management, privileged access, and audit readiness.

• Automation and standardization mindset with ability to reduce manual effort using scripting,

Ansible, repeatable runbooks, and reusable operational procedures.

• Strong understanding of identity, authentication, authorization, Kerberos, LDAP, DNS, TLS,

RBAC, and Linux access control models.

• Cloud-native operational awareness for Kubernetes workloads, namespaces, secrets, storage,

networking, monitoring, and platform resilience.

• Ability to document architecture standards, SOPs, troubleshooting guides, change plans, and

production support runbooks clearly.

• Effective communication and collaboration with security, infrastructure, application, vendor,

operations, and leadership stakeholders.

• Ability to work independently, prioritize incidents and service requests, manage multiple

technical priorities, and support high-pressure production situations.

• Continuous improvement mindset aligned with automation, reliability engineering, secure-by-

design practices, cost optimization, and service quality improvement.

• Customer-oriented approach with focus on responsiveness, clear updates, service reliability, and

stakeholder satisfaction.

RAKUTEN SHUGI PRINCIPLES:

Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviours that make Rakuten unique and united across

the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

• Always improve, always advance. Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen.

• Be passionately professional. Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to

be the best.

• Hypothesize - Practice - Validate - Shikumika. Use the Rakuten Cycle to success in unknown territory.

• Maximize Customer Satisfaction. The greatest satisfaction for workers in a service industry is to see

their customers smile.

• Speed!! Speed!! Speed!! Always be conscious of time. Take charge, set clear goals, and engage your

team.