Staff Forward Deployed Engineer – Kubernetes

Stacklok

Staff Forward Deployed Engineer at Stacklok leading technical engagements with enterprise customers in the US-East and EMEA region. Focusing on Kubernetes deployments and AI production initiatives.

Posted 7/30/2026full-timeRemote • New York • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $216,000 - $264,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates deep expertise in Kubernetes deployments and technical leadership, with a strong focus on mentoring engineers and driving enterprise customer engagements. Proficient in observability practices and AI initiatives, with a hands-on approach to problem-solving and production delivery.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Kubernetes ExpertiseTechnical LeadershipObservability ExpertiseAI Initiatives ExperienceCustomer Engagement Delivery

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Production Code WritingKubernetes Cluster ArchitectureRBAC and Permission ModelsGo ControllersHelm AuthoringGitOps via Flux or ArgoCDMetrics InstrumentationTroubleshooting Production SystemsAI Agent ToolingMCP Server Management

Soft Skills

Excellent CommunicationMentorshipOwnershipSelf-DirectedProblem-Solving

Tools & Technologies

PrometheusOpenTelemetryDatadogGrafana

Industry Keywords

Enterprise Customer EngagementsTechnical DirectionDeployment PatternsReference ArchitecturesStartup Mentality

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

FluxGoGrafanaKubernetesPrometheus

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Serve as a technical lead for the US-East and EMEA region, embedding with enterprise customers, taking them from first evaluation to production deployment, and answering technical questions.
Shape technical direction, establish deployment patterns, and mentor engineers across the team.
Work on complex Kubernetes deployments and solve problems related to AI initiatives reaching production.
Design and deliver changes to how the platform deploys to Kubernetes, unblocking enterprise adoption and contributing those changes upstream.
Define reference architectures and deployment patterns that engagements build on.
Mentor engineers through design reviews and serve as a technical gate for hiring.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Strong software engineering fundamentals: writes well-structured production code with sound design and testing judgment.
Extensive experience serving as the senior or lead engineer in enterprise customer engagements, with a proven ability to lead hands-on customer delivery in the field.
Proven technical leadership through technical direction, mentorship, and stewardship of high-quality engineering practices.
Deep Kubernetes expertise across cluster architecture, networking, storage, RBAC, and permission models, with operator and CRD literacy, Go controllers, Helm authoring, and GitOps via Flux or ArgoCD.
Strong observability expertise across metrics, logs, and traces, with the ability to instrument, troubleshoot, and debug production systems using Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or Grafana.
Hands-on experience building or running MCP servers or AI agent tooling, ideally in production environments.
AI-first mindset: an active user of AI coding assistants who brings agentic workflows into daily work and experiments with AI to automate and accelerate delivery.
Communication: excellent written and verbal communication, able to explain complex technical ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Startup mentality and strong ownership: self-directed and hands-on, comfortable building where no playbook exists yet, and driving clarity through action rather than waiting for it.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
Flexible PTO and paid holidays
Paid parental leave
Flexible, hybrid-or-remote work environment
Team offsites in unique destinations