About us:
Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.
As a lead engineer, you serve as the technical anchor for the engineering team that supports a product. You create, own and are responsible for the application architecture that best serves the product in its functional and non-functional needs. You identify and drive architectural changes to accelerate feature development or improve the quality of service (or both). You have deep and broad engineering skills and are capable of standing up an architecture in its whole on your own, but you choose to influence a wider team by acting as a “force multiplier”. Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
We are looking for a Lead Engineer – Kubernetes Platform with extensive platform engineering experience in designing, building, automating, and operating cloud-native platforms. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in Kubernetes, cloud-native technologies, and platform automation, with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, security, and operational excellence. This role will provide technical leadership in evolving our Kubernetes platform across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments.
Required Skills
Strong software development experience in Go (Golang).
Extensive hands-on experience designing, administering, and operating Kubernetes platforms, including cluster provisioning, configuration, upgrades, troubleshooting, and production operations.
Strong experience running Kubernetes on public cloud platforms. Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is preferred; equivalent experience with AWS, Azure, or other public cloud platforms is also acceptable.
Deep understanding of Kubernetes architecture and networking, including CNI plugins, ingress controllers, services, network policies, load balancing, traffic routing, and service connectivity.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Kubernetes deployment tools such as Terraform, Helm, and Kustomize.
Experience implementing GitOps practices using tools such as Argo CD and/or Flux.
Strong understanding of CI/CD automation and modern software delivery practices for Kubernetes platforms.
Experience with observability solutions, including metrics, logging, monitoring, alerting, distributed tracing, and platform reliability.
Experience administering Linux operating systems and optimizing container host environments.
Experience with Kubernetes storage technologies, including CSI drivers, Persistent Volumes (PV), Persistent Volume Claims (PVC), Storage Classes, StatefulSets, and disaster recovery strategies.
Strong automation-first mindset with experience managing infrastructure and platform services as code using version control, GitOps, and Infrastructure as Code practices.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and/or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) certification is a plus.
Responsibilities
Design, build, automate, and operate Kubernetes platform services across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments.
Develop platform tooling, controllers, and automation using Go (Golang).
Design, implement, and manage GitOps and CI/CD workflows to automate application and infrastructure deployments across multi-cluster Kubernetes environments.
Manage, optimize, and scale Kubernetes clusters, including Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and the supporting cloud infrastructure.
Drive platform observability, reliability, security, resiliency, and operational excellence.
Lead platform initiatives including Kubernetes upgrades, cluster migrations, networking enhancements, storage architecture, scalability improvements, and platform modernization.
Define platform architecture, engineering standards, and long-term technical strategy.
Partner with engineering teams to deliver secure, scalable, resilient, and self-service cloud-native platform capabilities.
Serve as a technical subject matter expert, mentor engineers, and influence engineering best practices across teams.
Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to define platform roadmaps and balance product requirements with long-term platform sustainability.
Preferred Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
10+ years of experience in software engineering, cloud engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related field.
Skills Required
- Strong development experience in Go (Golang)
- Hands-on experience building and operating Kubernetes-based platforms
- Experience with GitOps tools and practices (e.g., ArgoCD, Flux)
- Understanding of observability frameworks (monitoring, logging, tracing)
- Experience with Talos Linux and Linux system administration
- Solid understanding of networking concepts including Kubernetes networking and service connectivity
- Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and managing GKE clusters
- Ability to troubleshoot and optimize distributed systems in production
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
- Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) and/or Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
- Experience with platform automation, infrastructure as code, and cloud-native security best practices
Target Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Target and has not been reviewed or approved by Target.
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Healthcare Strength — Health benefits are accessible to hourly team members at relatively low hour thresholds and include no‑cost, 24/7 virtual medical care and expanded mental‑health support. This breadth is positioned as a relative strength compared to typical retail offerings.
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Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a dollar‑for‑dollar 401(k) match with immediate vesting and options like Roth 401(k) and stock purchase. These features strengthen long‑term savings for a wide range of roles.
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Parental & Family Support — Family support includes paid family leave, backup care, and reimbursements for adoption and surrogacy. These resources complement paid time off and holidays for eligible team members.
Target Insights
What We Do
Target is an American retailing company providing access to a wide selection of products such as furniture, electronics, toys, and more. Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. We make Target our guests’ preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver. Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities. Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop.
