Administrator - Systems Sr

Blue Origin; Washington; On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking a Sr. System Administrator to own the AWS infrastructure behind enterprise applications. You’ll manage compute, storage, networking, databases, patching, upgrades, and health while applying AI-assisted development to automate tasks.

The role emphasizes automation, observability, and Infrastructure-as-Code with a focus on reliability and security in a production environment in the U.S. Washington area.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
• Significant experience architecting and operating AWS workloads in production.
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation.
• Experience with monitoring, alerting, and incident response for production systems.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to mentor others.

Responsibilities

• Architect, deploy, and operate the AWS infrastructure for enterprise workloads.
• Set standards for IaC, automation, security, reliability, and observability.
• Own patching, upgrades, health, capacity planning, and DR for critical infra.
• Write code and leverage AI-assisted development to automate tasks.
• Define tools for automation and observability; participate in on-call rotations.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity teams to meet security/compliance requirements.

Skills

AWS architecture

Infrastructure-as-Code

Automation

Mentoring engineers

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Terraform

Jira

Confluence

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Application close date: Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of Enterprise Technology (ET), where we're developing the digital infrastructure needed to build the road to space, with an emphasis on digital capabilities required to advance Blue Origin's mission. Enterprise Technology is the center of excellence for digital technology at Blue Origin, providing oversight and governance to align technology and business strategies.

Senior System Administrator

As part of a hardworking team of technology professionals, you are invited to join us as a Sr. System Administrator. You will join the Applications team, the group that administers Jira, Confluence, and a portfolio of enterprise applications used by everyone at Blue Origin. When the entire company plans work and shares knowledge, it runs on the platforms this team owns. You will own the AWS infrastructure underneath those applications: compute, storage, networking, databases, patching, upgrades, and system health. This is a hands‑on engineering role at the center of a team raising its operational maturity. You will bring rigor and repeatability to how infrastructure is provisioned and managed. AI is a core tool in how you work; you will use AI‑assisted development to accelerate automation, troubleshooting, and documentation.

Our tech stack at a glance:

• Amazon Web Services (EC2, RDS, VPC, IAM, etc.)
• Terraform
• Atlassian (Jira, Confluence)
• Docker / Kubernetes
• Datadog
• Linux
• Python, Go
• AI/LLM tools (Claude, Codex, etc.)

What makes our engineers successful?

• Deep technical command of AWS services and cloud architecture; you go deep and solve problems at the root
• A relentless focus on operational excellence; you automate ruthlessly and drive continuous improvement
• A bias toward Infrastructure-as-Code; you treat infrastructure as version‑controlled, repeatable, and automated by default
• Strong ownership; you take responsibility for the availability, performance, and security of the systems you run
• A customer‑first mindset and desire to deeply understand the needs of the teams you support
• The ability to work independently and set technical patterns others on the team follow
• A natural inclination to mentor and elevate the engineers around you
• The ability to influence leadership decisions by articulating technical trade‑offs in business terms

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Architect, deploy, and operate the AWS infrastructure (compute, storage, networking, databases, security) that hosts Blue Origin's enterprise application workloads
• Set the technical vision and standards for Infrastructure-as-Code, automation, security, reliability, and observability across the team's systems
• Own patching, upgrades, system health, capacity planning, and disaster recovery for the infrastructure the company depends on
• Write code and leverage AI-assisted development to automate operational tasks, reduce toil, and improve reliability
• Evaluate and select strategic tools and technologies for automation, observability, and IaC
• Establish and improve monitoring, alerting, and incident management practices; define and meet SLAs/SLOs; participate in on‑call rotation
• Partner with cybersecurity teams to ensure infrastructure meets security and compliance requirements
• Represent the team across the organization: build coalitions to drive adoption of shared standards, influence leadership on infrastructure strategy, and coordinate cross‑team projects
• Mentor and coach engineers on the team, elevating organizational capabilities in infrastructure automation and reliability engineering

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• Significant experience architecting and operating application workloads on AWS in a production environment
• Hands‑on experience writing Infrastructure-as-Code
• Experience with monitoring, alerting, and incident response for production systems
• Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex infrastructure issues across multiple layers of the stack
• Demonstrated ability to mentor other engineers and lead technical direction for a team
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building automation that eliminates operational toil and manual work
• Experience using AI tools and AI‑assisted development in an engineering or operations context
• Experience operating the infrastructure behind enterprise appli