Cloud Network Engineer

Job descriptions focused on HashiCorp and Service Mesh (specifically

HashiCorp Consul) center on managing secure, authorized, and observable service-to-service communication within dynamic, multi-cloud, and microservices-based environments

Core Responsibilities

• Service Mesh Management: Deploy, configure, and operate HashiCorp Consul to manage East-West traffic between services.
• Zero Trust Security: Implement mTLS (mutual Transport Layer Security) encryption for all service-to-service communication, including automatic certificate management.
• Access Control: Define and manage service-to-service permissions using Consul intentions (intent-based policies) to restrict traffic.
• Service Discovery: Maintain a central, real-time, and dynamic service registry to track service health and IP addresses.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Use Terraform and Consul-Terraform-Sync (CTS) to automate network device updates based on service changes.
• Traffic Engineering: Configure traffic splitting, canary releases, and load balancing for high availability.
• Observability: Implement telemetry and integrate with tools like Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring service health and network traffic. 

Typical Qualifications & Skills

• Experience with HashiCorp Suite: Proven experience with Consul, including Consul Connect, as well as Vault (for secrets management) and Terraform.
• Containerization & Orchestration: Strong knowledge of Kubernetes (K8s), Docker, and Nomad.
• Networking Knowledge: Understanding of L7 traffic management, TCP/UDP/gRPC protocols, load balancing, and DNS.
• Proxy Knowledge: Experience with Envoy proxy (used as the data plane in Consul).
• Cloud Platforms: Familiarity with AWS (EKS, ECS, Lambda), GCP, or Azure.
• Platform Agnostic: Ability to manage service mesh across hybrid environments (Kubernetes, VMs, on-premises). 

Key Use Cases in Job Roles

• Solving Complex Networking: Moving away from static IP-based firewall rules to service-based segmentation.
• Multi-Cluster Connectivity: Utilizing Mesh Gateways to connect different service meshes across regions or clouds.
• Legacy Application Support: Connecting legacy VM-based applications to modern Kubernetes services via sidecar proxies.