Principal Software Engineer - RHACM - GoLang - Kubernetes - OpenShift

About the role

The Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management team is looking for a Principal Software Engineer in India to help shape the future of multicluster management and cloud-native platform technologies. In this role, you will provide architectural and technical leadership for a newly formed engineering group working on scalable Kubernetes-based control-plane and multicluster management capabilities. You will collaborate closely with globally distributed engineering teams across North America, APAC, and Europe to drive platform architecture, engineering consistency, and long-term technical strategy. You will work on core Kubernetes multicluster management capabilities including placement, orchestration, GitOps integration, policy distribution, and fleet lifecycle management at enterprise scale. This role provides a unique opportunity to influence the future of open multicluster management technologies through architectural leadership, upstream collaboration, and platform innovation across the Kubernetes and CNCF ecosystem. A key part of this role includes contributing to OCM (Open Cluster Management), a CNCF Sandbox project, and collaborating with the broader cloud-native open source community. What will you do? Drive architecture and technical direction for multicluster management and cloud-native platform capabilities across globally distributed engineering teams. Design and develop highly scalable Kubernetes control-plane components, operators/controllers, APIs, and distributed platform services using Go (Golang). Architect and optimize reconciliation workflows, placement engines, policy distribution systems, and fleet lifecycle management capabilities for large Kubernetes environments. Working with architects and partner teams on architecture and integration approaches for multi-cluster GitOps workflows, leveraging Argo CD and Kubernetes-native deployment models. Participating in the technical direction and evolution of Advanced Cluster Management and OCM-related initiatives, contributing to discussions around platform abstractions, extensibility frameworks, engineering standards, and long-term platform strategy. Collaborate with product management, engineering leadership, and architects to translate complex product requirements into scalable enterprise platform capabilities. Influence upstream technical direction and collaborate with maintainers across Kubernetes, CNCF, OCM, and GitOps ecosystem projects. Drive engineering excellence through technical mentoring, architecture reviews, design documentation, and engineering best practices. Mentor senior engineers and help grow technical leadership capabilities across the organization. Champion AI-assisted engineering practices and modern developer workflows to accelerate software delivery, improve software quality, and enhance engineering productivity. Evaluate and adopt emerging AI-native software engineering patterns, tooling, and intelligent automation frameworks. What will you bring? 8+ years of software development experience with strong expertise designing and building scalable distributed systems and enterprise platform products. Strong experience designing Kubernetes-based platform architectures and cloud-native distributed systems. Proficiency in Go (Golang) with deep experience developing Kubernetes components, operators/controllers, CRDs, APIs, and cloud-native platform capabilities. Strong understanding of Kubernetes internals, control-plane patterns, reconciliation workflows, and cloud-native architecture principles. Experience with multicluster management, fleet orchestration, GitOps workflows, or large-scale Kubernetes environments. Familiarity with Kubernetes API machinery, controller-runtime, operator development patterns, and extensibility frameworks. Strong product engineering mindset with experience balancing scalability, usability, reliability, and developer experience. Proven ability to lead technical initiatives across multiple teams and globally distributed organizations. Excellent communication and collaboration skills with the ability to influence technical direction across teams and stakeholders. Demonstrated leadership in AI-native engineering workflows and modern developer productivity tooling, with a focus on driving innovation and adoption. The following are considered a plus: Maintainer or active contributor experience in CNCF or Kubernetes ecosystem projects. Experience designing multicluster orchestration, fleet management, or GitOps platforms at enterprise scale. Experience with Argo CD, GitOps platforms, and Kubernetes-native application delivery workflows. Familiarity with OpenShift, hybrid cloud platforms, or enterprise Kubernetes distributions. Contributions to OCM (Open Cluster Management), Argo CD, or related CNCF ecosystem projects are a strong plus. Experience with AI-assisted developer tooling such as Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Gemini Code Assist, or similar platforms.