Senior/Expert Community Engineer (f/m/d) for Open Component Model

What you'll do:

Summary:

We’re not just offering a role—we’re inviting you to help shape the future of cloud-native delivery through the Open Component Model (OCM). By donating OCM and related projects to the neutral NeoNephos Foundation, we’ve committed to open governance, shared ownership, and a durable ecosystem. Make your mark, invite others, build what’s next together, and grow with us.

The Cloud-Native Lifecycle Management team is advancing enterprise delivery by applying cloud-native principles to the full software lifecycle. With OCM as a core building block, we standardize how software is described, delivered, verified, and operated—across clouds, clusters, and the edge. Our work powers SAP’s Infrastructure-as-Data approach and underpins the Cloud Orchestrator Platform used by development teams across SAP. 

We’re building ApeiroRA, an open-source reference architecture that strengthens Europe’s digital sovereignty. This initiative is part of a broader movement to ensure security, sustainability, and compliance for Europa’s cloud-to-edge computing. By joining us, you’ll contribute to a project that’s not just technical; it’s strategic for Europe’s future.  

The Role:

As a senior/expert community engineer, you will:

• Act as a technical multiplier for the Infrastructure-as-Data paradigm shift, contributing directly to evolving the platform's core capabilities and enriching the Kubernetes API
• Engage in contributing open-source projects like Flux, Argo, External Secrets Operator, KRO and more to enable declarative infrastructure management.
• Design and engineer a robust, automated bootstrapping control plane to ensure secure, compliant, and efficient software lifecycle management, particularly in the context of sovereign cloud and EU AI Cloud enforcement.
• Improve engineering standards, enhance project visibility, and actively seek opportunities for collaborations across the community.
• Actively engage with and contribute to the internal community and external cloud-native ecosystem, ensuring the platform's success and providing technical support to internal stakeholders relying on the platform. 

What you bring:

• Strong problem-solving and analytical capabilities, with a collaborative, proactive mindset and a commitment to continuous improvement.
• Experience in community engagement and open-source contributions, ability to clearly communicate and present complex technical concepts.
• A distinguished university degree in Computer Science or a closely related field; or equivalent work experience.
• Strong hands-on technical skills with 3+ years of experience in full-time software engineering related roles and a strong focus on interacting and working with code.
• Solid understanding of container technologies, and the broader cloud-native ecosystem, with familiarity with the CNCF landscape.
• Confidence navigating the Kubernetes ecosystem and elaborating its extension concepts including CRDs, the operator pattern or extension API Servers.
• High proficiency in English, both written and spoken, and German language skills are beneficial.

Meet your team:

We are a team of builders, innovators, and collaborators. Our culture is rooted in openness and trust. We believe the best ideas come from diverse perspectives, and we create space for every voice to be heard. We thrive on curiosity and continuous learning. This is a place where you can make an impact that matters. Your work will influence not only SAP but also Europe’s digital future. We support each other, push boundaries together, and never stop exploring what’s next. We are extremely proud of what we have built for our users and the open-source community, and we would like you to be part of this journey. We’re not just another project; we are the backbone of SAP’s cloud-native infrastructure and a leading open-source solution trusted across industries.

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