Kubernetes Database Reliability Engineer

Purpose of the Role The ICRC is seeking an experienced Kubernetes Database Reliability Engineer (Kubernetes & Open-Source Databases) to modernize its database ecosystem by moving databases from traditional virtual machines to containers on Kubernetes. This transformation will improve the availability and security of the ICRC’s database services and make them easier to automate and faster to deliver, in support of the ICRC’s mandate to protect and assist people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence. The role involves designing the target architecture, building GitOps-based delivery with Helm and Kustomize and managing the lifecycle of containerized databases across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, both on-premises and in the cloud. These databases support global digital services as well as field-facing humanitarian applications deployed in some of the most operationally demanding settings. The role also sets standards, leads a platform and works closely with application teams to ensure workloads run reliably. Main Duties & Responsibilities Own the lifecycle of containerized databases in the ICRC’s Kubernetes clusters for engines such as PostgreSQL and MongoDB, from design and provisioning to upgrades, migrations and decommissioning, both on-premises and in the cloud. Design and test backup, restore, point-in-time recovery and disaster recovery strategies, including object storage targets, and run regular recovery exercises. Deploy and operate Kubernetes database operators (e.g. CloudNativePG, MongoDB operators) and define standards for their use. Build reusable, versioned Helm charts and Kustomize overlays to provision databases consistently across environments and clusters. Automate the provisioning and delivery of database workloads using GitOps, Ansible and CI/CD pipelines. Apply security standards, including RBAC, network policies, secrets management, encryption in transit and at rest, image scanning and pod security standards, and ensure compliance with ICRC policies and data protection regulations. Support open-source database operations across hybrid environments to ensure high availability, integrity, performance and security. Support the observability stack, covering monitoring of database clusters and workloads (Prometheus, Grafana), logging and distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry).