diff --git a/deployment/kustomization.yaml b/deployment/kustomization.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2831f00d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/deployment/kustomization.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
+kind: Kustomization
+
+# Basic node-problem-detector install (system-log-monitor only). Lets the
+# manifests be consumed as a kustomize base, e.g. `kubectl apply -k deployment/`
+# or from the e2e overlay in test/e2e/manifests/.
+resources:
+- rbac.yaml
+- node-problem-detector-config.yaml
+- node-problem-detector.yaml
diff --git a/test/e2e/manifests/deploy-npd.sh b/test/e2e/manifests/deploy-npd.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..681ab1ade
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/e2e/manifests/deploy-npd.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+# Copyright 2026 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+# Deploys node-problem-detector as a DaemonSet onto a running cluster for the
+# GCE cluster e2e jobs, which exercise k8s.io/kubernetes
+# test/e2e/node/node_problem_detector.go. The kube-up NPD addon was removed from
+# kubernetes/kubernetes, so that test falls back to looking for a
+# "node-problem-detector" pod; this script provides it.
+#
+# The image comes from the per-branch community staging registry, matching the
+# node e2e job (see test/build.sh). PULL_BASE_REF is set by Prow to the base
+# branch under test and defaults to master for local runs.
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+set -o pipefail
+
+SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
+readonly SCRIPT_DIR
+readonly IMAGE="gcr.io/k8s-staging-npd/node-problem-detector"
+readonly TAG="${PULL_BASE_REF:-master}"
+
+echo "Deploying node-problem-detector DaemonSet (image tag: ${TAG})..."
+kubectl kustomize "${SCRIPT_DIR}" |
+  sed -E "s|image: ${IMAGE}:[^[:space:]]+|image: ${IMAGE}:${TAG}|" |
+  kubectl apply -f -
+
+echo "Waiting for node-problem-detector DaemonSet to become ready..."
+kubectl --namespace=kube-system rollout status daemonset/node-problem-detector --timeout=5m
diff --git a/test/e2e/manifests/kustomization.yaml b/test/e2e/manifests/kustomization.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..29e03dde8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/e2e/manifests/kustomization.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
+kind: Kustomization
+
+# Reuse the production base in deployment/ so this e2e overlay never drifts from
+# it; only the image is overridden, to the per-branch community staging build.
+resources:
+- ../../../deployment
+
+images:
+- name: registry.k8s.io/node-problem-detector/node-problem-detector
+  newName: gcr.io/k8s-staging-npd/node-problem-detector
+  newTag: master