diff --git a/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs b/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
index a3048a21a1348..ed97cf19b2fc2 100644
--- a/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
+++ b/src/clusterd/src/lib.rs
@@ -174,9 +174,40 @@ struct Args {
     enable_storage_introspection_logs: bool,
 }
 
+/// The process ordinal for a StatefulSet pod, taken from the trailing
+/// `-`-delimited segment of its hostname (e.g.
+/// "mz5ncn-cluster-s1-replica-s1-gen-1-0" → "0"). This mirrors how
+/// orchestrator-kubernetes recovers the process id from pod names.
+///
+/// Returns `None` when the trailing segment is not a non-negative integer, so
+/// an unexpected hostname leaves `CLUSTERD_PROCESS` unset rather than set to a
+/// value that fails to parse as the process index.
+fn process_ordinal_from_hostname(hostname: &str) -> Option<&str> {
+    let ordinal = hostname.rsplit('-').next()?;
+    ordinal.parse::<usize>().ok().map(|_| ordinal)
+}
+
 pub fn main() {
     mz_ore::panic::install_enhanced_handler();
 
+    // Derive `CLUSTERD_PROCESS` (the process ordinal) from the pod hostname
+    // when running under Kubernetes and it was not set explicitly. The
+    // distroless image has no shell entrypoint to do this, so clusterd does it
+    // itself.
+    if std::env::var("KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST").is_ok()
+        && std::env::var("CLUSTERD_PROCESS").is_err()
+    {
+        if let Ok(hostname) = std::env::var("HOSTNAME") {
+            if let Some(ordinal) = process_ordinal_from_hostname(&hostname) {
+                // SAFETY: `set_var` is called before any threads are spawned.
+                // `install_enhanced_handler` above only registers a panic hook.
+                // That hook spawns a thread only on panic, which cannot happen
+                // before this call.
+                unsafe { std::env::set_var("CLUSTERD_PROCESS", ordinal) };
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
     let args = cli::parse_args(CliConfig {
         env_prefix: Some("CLUSTERD_"),
         enable_version_flag: true,
@@ -477,3 +508,31 @@ fn is_connection_error(e: &std::io::Error) -> bool {
             | std::io::ErrorKind::ConnectionReset
     )
 }
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use super::*;
+
+    #[mz_ore::test]
+    fn test_process_ordinal_from_hostname() {
+        // A StatefulSet pod name ends in the process ordinal.
+        assert_eq!(
+            process_ordinal_from_hostname("mz5ncn-cluster-s1-replica-s1-gen-1-0"),
+            Some("0")
+        );
+        assert_eq!(
+            process_ordinal_from_hostname("mz5ncn-cluster-s1-replica-s1-gen-1-11"),
+            Some("11")
+        );
+        // A bare numeric hostname is its own ordinal.
+        assert_eq!(process_ordinal_from_hostname("7"), Some("7"));
+
+        // A trailing segment that is not a non-negative integer yields `None`,
+        // so `CLUSTERD_PROCESS` stays unset rather than being set to a value
+        // that fails to parse as the process index.
+        assert_eq!(process_ordinal_from_hostname("clusterd"), None);
+        assert_eq!(process_ordinal_from_hostname("replica-abc"), None);
+        assert_eq!(process_ordinal_from_hostname("replica-"), None);
+        assert_eq!(process_ordinal_from_hostname(""), None);
+    }
+}