Deployment Engineer

Leidos; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 87,000 - 157,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos seeks a Deployment Engineer to install, configure, and support our AI-powered vulnerability operations platform across customer on-premises, air-gapped networks, hosted SaaS, and Leidos cloud.

This hands-on role focuses on getting systems up and running reliably, with strong documentation and collaboration with platform engineering and cyber-agent teams. Expect working across Kubernetes, LLM endpoints, and Linux environments.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in deployment engineering, systems/platform engineering, DevOps, or production infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience deploying containerized workloads with Kubernetes and Docker in multi-node clusters.
• Proficiency administering Linux systems with networking, storage, and containers.
• Experience with workloads calling LLM endpoints and handling rate limits and failures.
• Experience building backup/recovery to ensure reliability.
• Experience building monitoring, logging, and alerting.
• Experience automating setup tasks and reducing configuration drift.
• Strong documentation habits for architecture and operations training.
• Python scripting to automate deployment and glue systems.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance (U.S. citizenship required).

Responsibilities

• Install, configure, and validate the platform across on-premises, air-gapped, SaaS, and cloud environments.
• Design, deploy, and maintain the Linux and Kubernetes infrastructure the platform runs on.
• Build reproducible configurations and deployment workflows using infrastructure-as-code.
• Stand up monitoring, logging, and alerting to improve resilience and recoverability.
• Diagnose failures across Linux, networking, storage, containers, and distributed systems.
• Automate operational tasks, eliminate drift, and harden deployed systems.
• Contribute to deployment standards, upgrade strategies, and backup procedures.
• Perform capacity planning and identify performance bottlenecks.
• Document deployments and train customer and internal teams.
• Learn new skills and share knowledge with the team.

Skills

Kubernetes

Docker

Linux admin

LLM endpoints

Backup & recovery

Monitoring & logging

Automation

Documentation

Python scripting

Security clearance

Tools

Temporal workflow

Proxmox virtualization

PostgreSQL

ClickHouse

Redis

NixOS

Job description

Who We Are

Kudu Dynamics isaLeidos ownedcompany,forged out of a decade of experience in computer network operations and staffed with talent who have built, overseen, and enhanced capabilities throughout the entire USG arsenal. Our team of hackers, engineers, makers, and shakers have experience spanning centuries of research, development, and operations missions - across desktop, mobile, IoT, and embedded platforms. Kudu Dynamics is uniquely qualified to anticipate tomorrow's threats and build the next of capabilities.

Summary

We're an innovative, forward-looking team seeking a Deployment Engineer to install, configure, and support our AI-powered, autonomous vulnerability operations platform across the environments our customers run in - including customer on-premises installations, air-gapped and classified networks, a hosted software-as-a-service offering, and Leidos cloud-hosted infrastructure.

This role is for a hands-on engineer who enjoys standing systems up, making them run reliably in someone else's environment, and leaving behind clear documentation so others can operate what you deploy. You are comfortable working across Kubernetes, LLM endpoints, and Linux systems, and you are at ease with workloads that run for hours, retry, and return non-deterministic results. You'll partner closely with platform engineering and the Cyber Agent development teams, help customers get to a healthy running state, and feed what you learn in the field back into the product. We're a collaborative team working at the leading edge, and we're looking for someone who wants to both learn and lead. This is not a supervisory role.

Required Experience

• 3+ years in deployment engineering, systems/platform engineering, DevOps, or production infrastructure, including hands-on responsibility for standing up and supporting running systems.
• Hands-on experience deploying and operating containerized workloads with Kubernetes and Docker (e.g., MicroK8s, K3s, or equivalent), including multi-node clusters.
• Proficiency administering Linux systems, with practical troubleshooting across networking, storage, and containers.
• Experience deploying or supporting workloads that call internal or external LLM endpoints, and comfort reasoning about rate limits, provider failures, and model serving.
• Experience building and testing backup and recovery so deployed systems can be restored reliably.
• Experience building monitoring, logging, and alerting so problems are caught before customers notice them.
• Experience automating repetitive setup and configuration tasks and reducing configuration drift.
• Comfort operating long-running, highly parallel, retried, and non-deterministic jobs, including partially completed work and checkpointing.
• Strong documentation habits - able to capture system architecture and train others to operate and troubleshoot what you deploy.
• Scripting/programming ability (e.g., Python) sufficient to automate deployment and glue systems together.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. U.S. citizenship required.

What You'll Do

• Install, configure, and validate the platform across customer on-premises, air-gapped/classified, SaaS, and cloud environments.
• Design, deploy, and maintain the Linux and Kubernetes infrastructure the platform runs on.
• Build reproducible configurations and deployment workflows using infrastructure-as-code.
• Stand up monitoring, logging, and alerting, and improve resilience, recoverability, and maintainability.
• Diagnose failures across Linux, networking, storage, containers, and distributed systems - and help distinguish platform failures from issues in the software being analyzed.
• Automate operational tasks, eliminate configuration drift, and harden deployed systems.
• Contribute to operational standards, deployment practices, upgrade strategies, and backup/disaster-recovery procedures.
• Perform capacity planning and identify performance bottlenecks across compute, storage, and networking.
• Document everything you deploy and train customer and internal teams to operate it.
• Learn new skills and teach the rest of us what you know.

Your First Ninety Days

• Learn the scan lifecycle and how a unit of work moves through the platform.
• Get hands-on with the Temporal and Kubernetes execution plane and a full deployment end to end.
• Stand up (or improve) monitoring and the observability model for a deployed environment.
• Document a repeatable deployment runbook and contribute to the failure taxonomy.
• Validate backup and restore in a representative environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Proxmox or other virtualization, and self-hosted compute clusters.
• Familiarity with a durable workflow orchestration system such as Temporal, including diagnosing stuck, retried, and non-retryable executions.
• Experience operating Postgres, ClickHouse, or Redis.
• Familiarity with NixOS, Nix flakes, and reproducible system configuration.
• Exposure to defining Service Level Indicators/Objectives and error budgets.
• CPU/GPU scheduling for compute-intensive workloads, with capacity and utilization telemetry.
• Workload isolation and episodic execution environments for untrusted or potentially hostile software.
• Prior experience delivering software into classified, air-gapped, or disconnected government environments.
• Familiarity with NIST RMF accreditation activities (ATO / continuous ATO).
• Familiarity with DevSecOps pipelines and security tooling (SAST, DAST, SCA), or vulnerability-management workflows.
• Active U.S. government security clearance.
• Certifications such as Certified Kubernetes Administrator, a cloud architect/engineer credential, or Security+.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo - because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 - and moving faster than anyone else dares.

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range $87,100.00 - $157,450.00

About Leidos

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

Securing Your Data

Beware of fake employment opportunities using Leidos' name. Leidos will never ask you to provide payment-related information during any part of the employment application process (i.e., ask you for money), nor will Leidos ever advance money as part of the hiring process (i.e., send you a check or money order before doing any work). Further, Leidos will only communicate with you through emails that are generated by the Leidos.com automated system - never from free commercial services (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) or via WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. If you received an email purporting to be from Leidos that asks for payment-related information or any other personal information (e.g., about you or your previous employer), and you are concerned about its legitimacy, please make us aware immediately by emailing us at [e-mail].

If you believe you are the victim of a scam, contact your local law enforcement and report the incident to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.