Sr Lead Kubernetes Platform Engineer

About Coupa
Coupa makes margins multiply through its community-generated AI and industry-leading total spend management platform for businesses large and small. Coupa AI is informed by trillions of dollars of direct and indirect spend data across a global network of 10M+ buyers and suppliers. We empower you with the ability to predict, prescribe, and automate smarter, more profitable business decisions to improve operating margins.
Why join Coupa?
- Pioneering Technology: At Coupa, we're at the forefront of innovation, leveraging the latest technology to empower our customers with greater efficiency and visibility in their spend.
- Collaborative Culture: We value collaboration and teamwork, and our culture is driven by transparency, openness, and a commitment to excellence.
- Global Impact: Join a company where your work has a global, measurable impact on our clients, the business, and each other. Learn more on Life at Coupa blog and hear from our employees about their experiences working at Coupa.

The Impact of a Sr Lead Cloud Platform Engineer at Coupa
As a Sr Lead Kubernetes Engineer, you will be the technical cornerstone for our highly scaled, massively growing cloud environment. You will champion automation by default and FinOps principles to ensure efficiency, resilience, and scalable growth across our infrastructure of 140+ clusters. Your architectural vision and hands-on leadership will directly eliminate manual toil, optimize resource management, and empower Coupa to deliver highly available services to our global customers.
What You'll Do:
- Architect, manage, and scale our enterprise Kubernetes infrastructure to ensure maximum availability and performance across a large fleet of clusters.
- Lead the implementation of automated continuous workload optimization, shifting the organization away from manual tuning and human toil.
- Manage and extend intelligent resource automation platforms to automate workload sizing, placement, and Karpenter configurations.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Cloud Engineering, FinOps, and Finance teams to drive sustainable cost avoidance and alignment.
- Drive the design of robust Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and deep observability tools for the Kubernetes ecosystem.
- Mentor senior and junior engineers, setting the standard for technical excellence, platform resilience, and security.

What You Will Bring to Coupa:
- 7-10 years + proven experience as a Principal or Lead Platform Engineer managing Kubernetes at a massive enterprise scale.
- 5 years + experience implementing, designing and maintaining Kubernetes clusters.
- Deep, hands-on experience with intelligent resource automation platforms and automated scaling tools like Karpenter or Cluster Autoscaler.
- Strong understanding of FinOps principles and a track record of driving cost-avoidance strategies in cloud-native environments.
- A good understanding of networking.
- Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform or OpenTofu).
- Deep technical mastery of AWS or GCP or Azure cloud services and containerization technologies.
- Exceptional cross-functional communication skills to align complex technical initiatives with business goals.

Global Well-Being Perks (For All Employees Globally)
- Global Wellness Days: Enjoy two designated, company-wide paid wellness days off each year (typically the first Friday in March and the last Friday in September) so the entire global team can unplug, step away, and recharge together.
- Birthday Time-Off: Celebrate your day! Coupa provides a paid day off on your birthday or another day of your choice within your birthday month.
- Volunteer Time Off (VTO): Giving back is in our DNA. We offer 40 hours of paid VTO annually to support the community initiatives and volunteer programs you are passionate about.
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Access free, confidential, 24/7/365 counseling and resources for emotional support, work-life solutions, financial advice, legal guidance