About this role
<div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>About the ICRC</b></H2> </div><div><p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Since 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to relieve suffering and preserve human dignity during war and armed violence. Alongside our Red Cross and Red Crescent partners, we deliver life-saving aid across front lines and strive to reconnect families and locate missing people.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Engaging with authorities and armed forces on all sides, often confidentially, we advocate for humane treatment of detainees and urge compliance with international humanitarian law to protect civilians from harm, including online.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Purpose of the Role</b></H2> </div><div><p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">The ICRC is seeking a highly experienced Kubernetes Tech Lead to own, evolve, and operate its container orchestration platform in support of the ICRC's mandate to protect and assist victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence.</span><br><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">As the technical backbone of the ICRC's Kubernetes practice, this role is responsible for designing resilient, secure, and scalable cluster infrastructure serving both global digital services and field-facing humanitarian applications, including deployments in some of the most operationally demanding environments in the world.</span><br><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">The Kubernetes Tech Lead will set platform standards, lead a platform, and collaborate closely with application teams to ensure workloads run reliably across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Main Duties & Responsibilities</b></H2> </div><div><p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <ul> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Own the full lifecycle of ICRC's Kubernetes clusters (design, provisioning, upgrades, capacity planning, and decommissioning) across cloud and on-premises environments.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Define and enforce cluster architecture standards, including multi-tenancy models, namespace governance, RBAC policies, network segmentation, and pod security standards.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Lead the design and operation of cluster networking, covering CNI selection and configuration (Calico, Cilium), Ingress controllers, and DNS management.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Architect and manage persistent storage strategies, including CSI drivers, distributed storage (Rook/Ceph, Longhorn), StorageClasses, StatefulSet patterns, and backup and restore workflows.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Build and maintain GitOps delivery pipelines using ArgoCD for continuous deployment of workloads and cluster configuration.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Operate and maintain observability stacks covering cluster and workload monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), logging (Loki), and distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry).</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Support AI/ML platform workloads, including GPU scheduling (NVIDIA device plugin, MIG partitioning), batch pipelines (Argo Workflows, Kubeflow), and inference services.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Collaborate with product owners, software engineers, and DevOps and AI/ML teams to support diverse workload types, including application, batch processing, and AI services (GPU and inferencing).</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Establish and champion Kubernetes best practices, internal runbooks, and training programmes across engineering teams.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Stay current with the latest advancements in Kubernetes ecosystem technologies, trends, and best practices.</span></li> </ul> <p> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Education & Professional Background</b></H2> </div><div><p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <ul> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKAD, CKS) are strongly desired; Agile/SAFe certification is a plus.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">7+ years in infrastructure or platform engineering, with at least 4 years of deep, hands-on Kubernetes expertise in production environments.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Proven experience managing multi-cluster, multi-cloud, or hybrid Kubernetes environments at scale.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Proven ability to design and implement zero-downtime cluster upgrades and large-scale migrations.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Experience operating databases on Kubernetes or OpenShift (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MariaDB/MySQL) is an asset.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Contribution to open-source Kubernetes ecosystem projects or CNCF landscape tools is an asset.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Experience in a complex, diverse, and international environment is a plus.</span></li> </ul> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Skills & Competencies</b></H2> </div><div><p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <ul> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Solid understanding of cluster architecture (Control Plane, API Server), networking (CNI, Network Policies, Ingress, Gateway, DNS), storage (PVC, CSI, Ceph, Longhorn, S3), security (RBAC, security standards, image scanning, secret management), and observability (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OpenTelemetry).</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">GitOps mindset with hands-on experience using ArgoCD, Kustomize, and Helm.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Strong scripting and automation skills across Azure DevOps Pipelines, Ansible, Python, and Bash/Shell.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Strong proficiency in Go or Python for platform tooling and custom controller development.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Familiarity with GPU workload scheduling (NVIDIA device plugin, MIG partitioning) for AI/ML use cases.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Proven API design and integration experience across heterogeneous systems and partners.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Knowledge of data privacy regulations.</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Strong written and spoken English is required; French is a plus.</span></li> </ul> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Additional Information</b></H2> </div><div><p> </p> <ul> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Location: Geneva</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Type of contract: Open-ended</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Activity rate: 100%</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Start date: September/October 2026</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt">Recruiter: Alejandra Rodriguez</span></li> <li style="text-align:justify"><strong><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt;color:indianred">Application deadline: Monday, 13th of July 2026</span></strong></li> </ul> <p style="text-align:justify"><strong><span style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.0pt;color:indianred"><span style="background-color:white;color:indianred"><em><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;color:black"><span style="background-color:white">Important information: For future employees and their dependents who are not EU and/or EFTA nationals, settling in Switzerland is now required. Direct settlement in France </span></span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;color:black"><span style="background-color:white">upon arrival is no longer possible.</span></span></em></span></span></strong></p> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p></div></div><div style="padding:10.0px 0.0px;border:1.0px solid transparent"><div style="font-size:18.0px;word-wrap:break-word"><H2 style="font-size:1.0em;margin:0.0px"><b>Our Values</b></H2> </div><div><p> </p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif">At the ICRC, we value impact, collaboration, respect, and compassion. We seek candidates who demonstrate behaviors based on these shared values. For more information on the ICRC values, please visit this <a title="" href="https://careers.icrc.org/content/Our-Values/?locale=en_GB" target="_self">page</a>.</span></p> <p style="text-align:justify"> </p> <p style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Are you ready to explore the next chapter of your career? Apply now!</span></p></div></div></div>