Backup & Data Protection Engineer

Empower AI; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 96,000 - 149,000; Full time

Job summary

Empower AI in Washington, DC, seeks a Backup & Data Protection Engineer to design and maintain backup, recovery, and disaster recovery capabilities for government facilities. You will strengthen data resilience across primary and DR sites, implement automated failover, and perform regular testing to ensure availability.

Qualified candidates have 5+ years in IT, a Bachelor's in IT, and a Secret security clearance. Preferred certifications include CompTIA Sec+ and ITIL 4 Foundation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of IT experience.
• Bachelor's degree in IT or related field.
• Secret Security Clearance.
• Preferred: CompTIA Sec+, ITIL 4 Foundation Certification(s).

Responsibilities

• Maintain and enhance redundancy within the primary data center at ESOC/West (2N) and at the DR data center (Modular Data Center) to enable recovery of critical applications, databases, and services.
• Enable seamless, automated failover between primary and secondary 2N locations where possible.
• Implement and maintain data backup and replication strategies to ensure data integrity and availability, including regular backup testing and validation.
• Monitor DR infrastructure, data replication status, and failover readiness with automated alerting for anomalies or failures.
• Maintain clear criteria and procedures for DR activation, including escalation paths, decision authority, and coordination with incident response processes.
• Maintain SOPs for manual recovery as needed.

Education

Bachelor's degree in IT or related field

Tools

CompTIA Sec+

ITIL 4 Foundation Certification

Job description

Backup & Data Protection Engineer

Job ID: 2026-9270

Job Locations: US-DC

Category: IT: Administrator / Analyst / Architect / Engineer

Type: Regular Full-Time

Overview

Empower AI is AI for government. Empower AI gives federal agency leaders the tools to elevate the potential of their workforce with a direct path for meaningful transformation. Headquartered in Reston, Va., Empower AI leverages three decades of experience solving complex challenges in Health, Defense, and Civilian missions. Our proven Empower AI Platform provides a practical, sustainable path for clients to achieve transformation that is true to who they are, what they do, how they work, with the resources they have. The result is a government workforce that is exponentially more creative and productive. For more information, visit www.Empower.ai.

Empower AI is proud to be recognized as a 2024 Military Friendly Employer by Viqtory, the publisher of G.I. Jobs. This designation reflects the company's commitment to hiring and supporting active-duty and veteran employees.

Responsibilities

We have an exciting opportunity at the Department of State! The Backup & Data Protection Engineer provides data backup and recovery services for all customer facilities from the NCR (EOC).

• You will be required to maintain and enhance redundancy within the primary data center at ESOC/West (2N) and at the separate DR data center (Modular Data Center) to enable recovery of critical applications, databases, and services.
• This role requires you to enable seamless, automated failover between primary and secondary 2N locations where possible.
• Implement and maintain data backup and replication strategies to ensure data integrity and availability, including regular backup testing and validation.
• Implement continuous monitoring of DR infrastructure, data replication status, and failover readiness, with automated alerting for anomalies or failures.
• Maintain clear criteria and procedures for DR activation, including escalation paths, decision authority, and coordination with incident response processes.
• Maintain SOPs for manual recovery as needed.

Qualifications

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• 5+ years
• Bachelor's in IT or related field
• Secret Security Clearance

PREFERRED REQUIREMENTS:

• Comp TIA Sec+, ITIL 4 Foundation Certification(s)

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

This position requires the ability to perform the below essential functions:

• Sitting for long periods
• Standing for long periods
• Ambulate throughout an office
• Ambulate between several buildings
• Stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl as required
• Repeatedly lift and carry weight up to 40 pounds
• Travel by land or air transportation 10 % .

About Empower AI

All hiring and promotion decisions at Empower AI are based on merit to bring the best talent available to contribute to our firm's overall success. It is the policy of Empower AI not to discriminate against any applicant for employment, or employee because of age, color, sex, disability, national origin, race, religion, or veteran status. Empower AI is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

If hired for this position, the base salary range would be within the range provided. The base salary range represents the anticipated low and high end of the salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary based on various factors including but not limited to work location, skills, experience, gov con contractual requirements, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Empower AI's total compensation package for employees.

Pay Band Min

USD $96,050.00/Yr.

Pay Band Max

USD $148,670.00/Yr.