Cloud Architect

Nightwing; Sterling (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Nightwing is seeking a Cloud Engineer to design and implement cloud-centric, automated architectures for mission-critical environments. You will drive infrastructure as code, automated deployment workflows, and scalable, secure solutions to reduce manual tasks.

You will lead systems engineering efforts, coordinate cross-functional teams, and engage with customers and stakeholders to derive priorities and requirements.

Qualifications

• Must be a US citizen with active Secret clearance and ability to obtain TS/SCI.
• 8+ years of systems engineering experience, including requirements allocation, use cases, interfaces, and test.
• Proven leadership and ability to lead large teams in Agile environments.

Responsibilities

• Provide systems engineering leadership for a large cybersecurity system.
• Coordinate cross-team development, integration, and testing of cybersecurity capabilities.
• Interface with customers and stakeholders to derive priorities and requirements.
• Represent user needs and collaborate across agencies.
• Lead risk assessments and mitigation.
• Support risk management and architecture discussions.

Skills

US Citizenship

Secret clearance

TS/SCI eligibility

DHS Suitability

Systems engineering

Leadership

Agile leadership

Cybersecurity knowledge

Gov't policy awareness

Cross-agency collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, CS, or related field

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

CloudFormation

Jenkins

Splunk

RMF/NIST

Job description

Nightwing provides technically advanced full-spectrum cyber, data operations, systems integration and intelligence mission support services to meet our customers’ most demanding challenges. Our capabilities include cyber space operations, cyber defense and resiliency, vulnerability research, ubiquitous technical surveillance, data intelligence, lifecycle mission enablement, and software modernization. Nightwing brings disruptive technologies, agility, and competitive offerings to customers in the intelligence community, defense, civil, and commercial markets.

Nightwing is seeking a Cloud Engineer with the ability to assess, design, and develop a cloud-centric, requirements driven, autonomously orchestrated architectures and environments to ensure the rigor, consistency, and continued reliability of mission critical environments. This position is for an individual who fundamentally disagrees with the continued use of repetitive manual operational tasks over automated workflows, while trusting mature, automated resources to deploy any given system over manual deployment more accurately.

Responsibilities Include

• Providing Systems Engineering project leadership in support of a large, leading-edge cybersecurity system.
• Coordinating teams in the development, integration, and testing of advanced leading-edge cybersecurity, with the assistance of the Design & Development Lead and Chief Engineer
• Interfacing directly with the Customer, stakeholders, and end-users regarding priorities, capability architectures, requirements, use cases, and stories to derive, develop and decompose next-cycle updates and specifications
• Representing the voice of the user in development
• Collaborating within various project and development Teams
• Supporting risk assessments and developing risk mitigation countermeasures
• Providing Systems Engineering expertise and leadership in support of a large cybersecurity system

Required Skills

• Must be a US Citizen
• Must have an active Secret clearance and be able to obtain a TS/SCI clearance
• Must be able to obtain DHS Suitability
• 8+ years of directly relevant systems engineering experience such as allocation of hardware and software requirements, development of use cases and stories, interface definition, and systems integration & test
• Proven leadership skills and meaningful experience successfully leading large teams
• Able to effectively work as a leader, in a group, or as an individual contributor
• Experience working in an Agile development environment in a leadership roleExperience with and technical understanding of cybersecurity attack-mitigation techniques and cybersecurity architecture
• Possesses or quickly develops a comprehensive understanding of Government Information Security policies, regulations, and guidelines
• Must be able to work collaboratively across agencies and physical locations.

Desired Skills

• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) products such as Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, CodeCommit, Chef, and Jenkins
• -Familiarity with the following technologies in a cloud environment: Elk Stack (ElasticSearch, Logstash, Kibana),Nessus, ClamAV, AIDE, Splunk, DNS, NAT, git
• Experience and/or familiarity with software and system lifecycle methodologies, (e.g ISO, CMMI, ITIL, etc.)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automation
• Experience with designing and developing security automation to include patching, compliance, upgrades to increase efficiencies within AWS and Azure cloud environments
• Experience and/or familiarity of the Risk Management Framework (RMF) and security and privacy controls (NIST 800-37 and NIST 800-53) - DHS experience.

Required Education

Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems or related technical field. Two years of related work experience may be substituted for each year of degree level education.

Desired Certifications

• DoD 8570.1 IAT Level I or II (e.g. CISSP)
• AWS and Azure Cloud-related certifications
• Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) certification desired

At Nightwing, we value collaboration and teamwork. You’ll have the opportunity to work alongside talented individuals who are passionate about what they do. Together, we’ll leverage our collective expertise to drive innovation, solve complex problems, and deliver exceptional results for our clients.

Thank you for considering joining us as we embark on this new journey and shape the future of cybersecurity and intelligence together as part of the Nightwing team.

Nightwing is An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status, age or any other federally protected class.