Principal Linux Platform Engineer

Senior Executive Recruiter at Request Technology

• We are unable to sponsor as this is a permanent full time role.

• Hybrid, 3 days onsite, 2 days remote.

A prestigious company is looking for a Principal Linux Platform Engineer. This company is looking for a expert level Linux engineer with 10+ years of experience. This principal also must possess extensive experience working with Kubernetes, Terraform, Python/GO, AWS/GCP, etc.

Base pay range: $/yr - $/yr

• Design and evolve the firm’s container orchestration and compute platforms (Kubernetes, Incus/LXD, or hybrid systems) to support low-latency, high-availability financial applications.
• Define infrastructure-as-code (IaC) standards (Terraform, Pulumi, or similar) and ensure consistent, auditable deployments across environments.
• Lead the adoption of immutable infrastructure principles, secure baseline images, and reproducible environments (RHEL-based).
• Architect and implement CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and application deployment with an emphasis on developer experience and velocity.
• Partner with development, SRE, and security teams to ensure regulatory compliance, change control, and observability across all layers.
• Establish monitoring, logging, and metrics strategies (Prometheus, Loki, Grafana, Open Telemetry, etc.) for production and pre-production systems.
• Drive performance tuning and capacity planning for large-scale, latency-sensitive services.
• Serve as a technical mentor and thought leader within the organization.
• Provide strategic input into infrastructure roadmap, vendor selection, and emerging technology evaluations.

• 10+ years of professional experience in Linux systems engineering, ideally Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or derivatives.
• 5+ years of experience architecting and operating enterprise-grade Kubernetes platforms, capable of influencing technical direction, setting engineering standards, and serving as the technical authority for our Kubernetes strategy; must have hands‑on experience deploying and managing clusters in bare‑metal and on‑premises environments (self‑managed or cloud‑native distributions such as EKS, GKE, or Open Shift).
• Strong proficiency with Python or Go for automation, tooling, and integration with APIs.
• Deep understanding of networking (TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing) and security fundamentals (RBAC, TLS, secrets management).
• Expertise with CI/CD tooling (Jenkins, Git Hub Actions, ArgoCD, Tekton, etc.) and artifact lifecycle management (Harbor, Pulp, or Artifactory).
• Proven experience with IaC (Terraform, Pulumi, or Ansible/Salt Stack).
• Familiarity with container image lifecycle management, base image hardening, and SBOM compliance.
• Exposure to on-prem and hybrid cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or private cloud).
• Background in SRE practices, including SLI/SLO management, error budgets, and runbook automation.
• Experience with Git Ops, event‑driven automation, and declarative configuration management.
• Extensive experience working in cloud‐based environments like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.
• Understanding of compliance frameworks (SOC2, ISO
  27001, or NIST).

Mid‑Senior level

Full‑time

Information Technology

• Medical insurance
• Vision insurance
• 401(k)

Chicago, IL