For clusters that stay stable through the upgrade, not just between them
Hire Kubernetes Engineers
A cluster that runs fine today can still be one noisy neighbour, one bad upgrade or one networking edge case away from an incident. These engineers are tested on catching those exact failure modes. They are then placed to keep your cluster stable through the changes that actually break things.
- Profiles typically within two business days
- Replacement Assurance: If an engineer is not the right fit, a replacement from our own team starts within ten business days of your request, at no extra cost
- You interview before placement if you want to
- At least four hours a day inside your core working hours. Two hours plus a daily written handover for the US West Coast
- 14-Day Risk-Free Trial: For your first engineer on a time-and-materials engagement. Up to 14 calendar days or 80 logged working hours, whichever comes first. End within the trial and pay nothing for trial hours. Continue beyond it and those hours are billed at the agreed rate. Unpaid trial work remains ours if you stop
How we evaluate a Kubernetes engineer
The tasks, the signals and the onboarding, walked through by the people who run them.
90 secSample frame · video pending01Published, not promised
The assessment behind every engineer we send.
The Kubernetes bar is published, not assumed: five competencies, the exact task behind each, and the shortcut that ends a candidacy. Most interviews ask about YAML syntax. This one asks whether the cluster survives the next upgrade.
What we listen forWhether they design isolation around real workload types, not just one big pool.
A cluster has one giant node pool running everything from batch jobs to latency-sensitive APIs, and noisy-neighbour issues are starting. Propose a redesign.
- What strong sounds like
- Proposes node pools segmented by workload characteristics with taints and tolerations, explaining why that isolation actually helps.
- What gives us pause
- Proposes scaling the single node pool larger without addressing the underlying lack of workload isolation.
Kubernetes · Helm · kubectl
Istio/Linkerd · Ingress · CNI
Prometheus · Grafana · OpenTelemetry
ArgoCD · Kustomize · Cluster API
02Who you actually meet
The bench, priced by seniority.
Three seniority tiers, priced honestly, and the engineers who fill each one today. Real names and photos take their place as soon as we can share them, and the standard stays exactly the same.
Engineer
Features scoped tightly enough to ship inside your review bar, every time.
The right first hire when your seniors already set the standard.
$2,800–3,500per month
Senior
The hard module nobody else wants to own, taken end to end.
Ownership of a surface, without adding a manager to your headcount.
$3,800–4,800per month
Lead
The workstream's decisions, made daily, so nothing waits on a meeting.
One accountable voice for a pod or initiative that can't afford to drift.
$5,100–6,300per month
Kubernetes engineer
4 yrs · US East overlap
Diagnosed an OOMKilled pod to a pod-level memory limit, not a node capacity issue
- Kubernetes
- Helm
- Prometheus
Senior Kubernetes engineer
8 yrs · UK + EU hours
Ran a staged two-version upgrade that finally didn't break production
- Kubernetes
- Istio
- ArgoCD
- Grafana
Lead platform engineer
11 yrs · EU + US split
Owns the multi-tenant cluster architecture two engineering teams now share without conflict
- Architecture
- Cluster API
- OpenTelemetry
- Kustomize
Indicative ranges, representative profiles. Exact figures and named engineers arrive with your shortlist.
Weighing this against a freelancer, a direct hire or a marketplace? See the honest comparison
03From stated problem to first change
Four steps, each closing on evidence.
Each step here is built around your actual cluster, not a manifest-syntax quiz. Stopping after any of them costs you nothing at all.
Define the cluster problem
We map where your cluster's stability or isolation is actually under strain. The brief names that gap, not a list of Kubernetes objects to know.
A brief your leads signMatch against your cluster
Candidates are screened against your actual workload mix, your networking setup and your review culture. Three engineers who understand your cluster beat thirty who list Kubernetes on a CV.
Three fits, not thirty CVsAssess on the real tasks
Bring your own engineers to the scheduling-diagnosis and networking exercises. Judgement about real cluster behaviour is visible here, not a rehearsed manifest walkthrough.
Evaluation you can watchOnboard inside your process
Access, standards and a first bounded change to a real workload. Should the engineer ever leave, the transition is ours to manage, not yours to scramble over.
A merged change in week one
04Evidence and proof
Engineers who made the upgrade the safe part.
Kubernetes proof is a cluster that survives real change, not a demo deployment. Every record here waits for written client approval before production.
Explore case studies
An upgrade that finally didn't break production.
Pillar Learning's cluster had been stuck two versions behind because the last upgrade attempt caused an outage. An embedded Kubernetes engineer planned and ran the upgrade in stages, catching a deprecated API dependency before it became a repeat incident.
- Upgrade-related incidents
- Zero
- Versions caught up
- Two, in one engagement
He found the noisy-neighbour issue that had been causing random latency spikes for months.
Sample · pending client approval
The namespace isolation she set up finally let two teams share a cluster without stepping on each other.
Sample · pending client approval
05Three shapes, one standard
Add an engineer, a platform pod, or a practice.
Most teams start with one engineer working inside an existing cluster. Some need a pod that owns the whole platform layer. When what's needed is a platform delivered, not a seat added, we point you to the practice instead.
- Team extension
One named engineer
A single Kubernetes specialist inside your direction and your reviews. The smallest commitment, and the way most teams start.
- Delivery pods
A platform pod
A pod with its own lead that owns your cluster end to end, upgrades included. You set priorities while the pod carries delivery.
- Data & Cloud
The practice, not the person
When what's needed is a platform delivered, not a seat added, data and cloud engineering takes on that responsibility instead.
06Straight answers
Asked before a Kubernetes hire is signed.
01What does a Kubernetes engineer actually do day to day?
Designs cluster and node-pool architecture, tunes workload scheduling and resource limits, and plans upgrades carefully enough that they stop being feared. The unglamorous majority of the work is catching the failure mode before it reaches production.
02Do you hire for a specific Kubernetes distribution?
Matched to your actual setup. Architectural judgement about scheduling and networking transfers across EKS, AKS, GKE or self-managed clusters, then the evaluation confirms familiarity with yours.
03Can we run our own interviews as well?
Yes, the published tasks are built to be reused directly. Several clients now run the networking-diagnosis exercise themselves in later hiring rounds.
04How fast can a Kubernetes engineer start?
A shortlist arrives within days from a bench evaluated continuously. Real start speed after that tracks your own cluster access process.
05Who manages the engineer day to day?
Your leads run the reviews and hold the standards. We carry what an employer carries instead: continuity, payroll, replacement risk and the transitions when plans change.
06What if the engineer is not the right fit?
Tell us within the first weeks and the swap is funded by us. The next candidate is briefed on the exact miss, so it rarely happens a second time.
07Do your Kubernetes engineers use AI tools?
Yes, openly. AI drafts manifests and Helm chart scaffolding quickly; the engineer stays accountable for every scheduling decision, networking boundary and merge that reaches your cluster.
08How does pricing work for a hired Kubernetes engineer?
The seniority bands above set the expectation; the shortlist confirms the actual figure per engineer. Monthly billing, no fee before an interview, notice period only.