Exams IT Cloud-Native Infrastructure Specialist

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. For 90 years we have shaped brighter futures through education, arts, culture, language, and creativity.

Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries.

We connect. We inspire.

Pay Band: 7

Country/Location: Beijing, China

Department: English and Exams

Contract Type: Fixed term contract

Contract Duration: Two years

Closing Date: Wednesday, 08 April 2026- 23:59 China Time (GMT +8)

Role Description/Purpose

The primary purpose of this role is to design, implement, and manage the enterprise container orchestration platform, ensuring high availability, security, and performance. As the subject matter expert, this role will enable development teams to deploy and operate applications seamlessly while upholding robust infrastructure standards.

Role Accountabilities

We are seeking a skilled professional to take ownership of our orchestration platform, serving as the critical contact point for Development teams and ensuring the platform meets its service level agreements. This role is central to maintaining and evolving our Kubernetes ecosystem across production and non-production environments, while driving performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. You will be responsible for the lifecycle of the platform, including upgrades, patching, scaling, and disaster recovery, as well as implementing monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions to keep systems running smoothly.

The successful candidate will play a key role in building and supporting CI/CD pipelines, developing Helm charts and operators, and providing standardized templates and internal developer platforms to accelerate application deployment. You will also contribute to infrastructure design for machine learning workloads, manage cloud resource usage and costs, and ensure compliance with industry standards and internal security policies. Beyond day-to-day operations, you will create and maintain documentation, evaluate new tools and technologies, and continuously enhance the capabilities of the platform. This is an opportunity to make a significant impact by enabling teams to innovate faster and more securely on a robust, scalable foundation.

Qualifications & Experience

• Education: BS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or related technical field involving coding or equivalent practical experience.
• Core: 3+ years hands-on experience managing production Kubernetes clusters (EKS, AKS, GKE, or on-premises Kubernetes platform).
• Infrastructure as Code: Proficiency in Terraform or equivalent tools.
• CI/CD & GitOps: Solid experience with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps or Octopus.
• Containers & OS: Deep knowledge of Docker, Linux systems, and container networking.
• Monitoring & Observability: Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, Guance, Dynatrace or equivalent.
• Scripting: Proficiency in at least one of: Python, Go, Shell or Bash.
• AI/ML Infrastructure Fundamentals: Understanding of mainstream AI frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch), Basic knowledge of distributed training and model deployment.
• Experience in cloud cost management, proficient with cloud cost management tools, and understanding of core cloud billing models and cost optimization strategies.

Further Information

Language:

• English at Proficiency Level B2(APTIS, IELTS 5.5 or equivalent)
• Chinese at Proficiency Level C1 (HSK 5 or equivalent)

Benefits:

• 22 days of Annual Leave
• 13th Month Salary
• Non-consolidated bonus
• Comprehensive health and insurance package – includes accidental insurance, life insurance, and supplementary medical coverage
• Social insurance & housing fund - Coverage under national social insurance and housing fund
• Professional development - Ongoing learning and career growth opportunities to support your development.

Right to Work: Locally recruited

Applications are welcomed from candidates currently in this location with a natural right to work.  

Applications are also welcomed from candidates currently based in other British Council country offices. However, please note candidates must have a natural right to work in the country, on a permanent basis, as immigration clearance and/or on-going visa support is not provided by the British Council for this role.  Relocation support is also not provided. 

A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statement

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from all sections of the community as we believe that a diverse workforce gives added depth to our work. The British Council is a Disability Confident Employer. The Disability Confident scheme helps challenge attitudes, increase understanding of disability and ensure staff are drawn from the widest possible pool of talent. We guarantee an interview for disabled applicants who meet the minimum role requirements. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.

Safeguarding Statement

The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with. We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989. Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.

If you experience any difficulties with submitting your application, please email askhr@britishcouncil.org