Application Guide

How to Apply for (Senior) IoT Cloud Engineer (m/f/d)

at 1KOMMA5°

🏢 About 1KOMMA5°

1KOMMA5° is building the future of decentralized clean energy by connecting solar, heat, and mobility solutions into a single smart platform. Their mission to achieve CO2-neutral buildings at scale makes them a purpose-driven leader in the energy transition, offering the chance to work on impactful technology that directly combats climate change.

About This Role

As a Senior IoT Cloud Engineer, you will own the cloud infrastructure behind 1KOMMA5°'s virtual power plant—managing device-to-cloud messaging, scaling Kubernetes clusters, and building observability pipelines. Your work will enable real-time control of thousands of distributed energy assets, making renewable energy reliable and profitable.

💡 A Day in the Life

Your day might start with a stand-up discussing scaling challenges from overnight device data surges, then you'll dive into tuning a GKE node pool or debugging a message backlog. After lunch, you could pair with a product team to design a new data pipeline for fleet insights, and end the day by reviewing a Helm chart PR or writing a runbook for the on-call rotation.

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Interview Prep

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🎯 Who 1KOMMA5° Is Looking For

  • A seasoned cloud engineer with 5+ years building distributed systems in production, who thrives on operating Kubernetes at scale (especially GKE).
  • Deeply familiar with MQTT and IoT messaging patterns, having handled high-throughput device fleets and fault-tolerant architectures.
  • Proficient in CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Helm), and platform engineering—automating everything from deployment to monitoring.
  • Passionate about clean energy and eager to solve challenges like low-latency device control, data pipelines for fleet insights, and secure cloud-edge communication.

📝 Tips for Applying to 1KOMMA5°

1

Highlight specific experience with GKE and Kubernetes in production: mention cluster sizing, autoscaling, network policies, and security hardening.

2

Show concrete examples of MQTT-based systems you've built or operated at scale (e.g., broker clusters, message routing, QoS handling).

3

Demonstrate your observability skills: describe how you've built monitoring, logging, and alerting pipelines (e.g., with Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK) to derive fleet insights.

4

Tailor your resume to emphasize platform engineering and IaC—use keywords like Terraform, Helm, GitHub Actions, and ArgoCD.

5

Mention any experience with energy systems, smart grids, or IoT device management platforms to show domain alignment.

✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter

["Your passion for sustainability and how this role directly contributes to 1KOMMA5°'s mission of CO2-neutral buildings.", 'Specific achievements in scaling Kubernetes clusters and managing IoT device fleets (e.g., number of devices, messages per second).', 'Your approach to building reliable cloud systems for real-time control and data pipelines, linking to virtual power plant requirements.', 'Collaboration with product teams to translate business needs into technical solutions, as mentioned in the job description.']

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🔍 Research Before Applying

To stand out, make sure you've researched:

  • → Understand 1KOMMA5°'s product ecosystem: their energy management system, solar inverters, heat pumps, and EV chargers.
  • → Read about their 'Virtual Power Plant' concept and how they aggregate and trade energy from distributed assets.
  • → Look into their tech stack: they mention GKE, MQTT, and cloud-native tools—familiarize yourself with their open-source contributions or blog posts.
  • → Check recent news or press releases about their funding, partnerships, or expansion to understand company growth and priorities.

💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics

Based on this role, you may be asked about:

1 How would you design a device-to-cloud messaging system for 100k+ IoT devices using MQTT? Discuss broker selection, clustering, and message persistence.
2 Describe a time you optimized a Kubernetes cluster for cost and performance. What metrics did you use and what changes did you make?
3 Explain your approach to building an observability pipeline that turns raw device data into actionable fleet insights.
4 How do you ensure secure device-to-cloud communication in an IoT platform? Discuss authentication, encryption, and certificate management.
5 Given 1KOMMA5°'s virtual power plant, how would you handle real-time control commands with low latency and high reliability?
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⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Not emphasizing production experience with Kubernetes at scale—generic 'K8s knowledge' won't stand out.
  • Overlooking MQTT specifics: vague mentions of IoT without detailing messaging patterns, broker management, or QoS levels.
  • Failing to connect your experience to the energy domain—even if you haven't worked in energy, show enthusiasm and transferable skills.

📅 Application Timeline

This position is open until filled. However, we recommend applying as soon as possible as roles at mission-driven organizations tend to fill quickly.

Typical hiring timeline:

1

Application Review

1-2 weeks

2

Initial Screening

Phone call or written assessment

3

Interviews

1-2 rounds, usually virtual

✓

Offer

Congratulations!

Ready to Apply?

Good luck with your application to 1KOMMA5°!

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