Platform Engineer- Chantilly, VA - Active TS/SCI CI Polygraph Required! Information Technology

SOC LLC

Chantilly (VA)

On-site

USD 121,000 - 172,000

Full time

8 days ago

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Job summary

SOC LLC is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to join a multi-year on-site contract in Chantilly, VA. You will design, deploy, and maintain development pipelines for AI workloads, building and securing platform infrastructure and Kubernetes clusters.

You will collaborate across teams to deliver scalable, secure platforms, with emphasis on automation, observability, and operational excellence in a complex federal/defense-like environment.

Qualifications

Active TS/SCI clearance with Counterintelligence polygraph.
Ubuntu Linux experience.
Hands-on Python development experience.
Extensive Kubernetes experience.

Responsibilities

Design, deploy, and maintain development pipelines for AI workloads.
Build, maintain, and secure platform infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable Kubernetes platforms.
Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize performance of clusters and pipelines.

Skills

Active TS/SCI with CI polygraph

Linux Ubuntu

Python

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD tooling

Terraform

Git

Argo CD

Networking

Security

Monitoring

SRE

GitOps

Linux/Unix

Tools

Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE/OpenShift)

Docker

Terraform

Git

CI/CD Platforms

Argo CD

Helm

Kustomize

Vault / AWS Secrets Manager

Job description

Senior Platform Engineer needed for a multi-year contract opportunity with SOC's client to work on-site in Chantilly, VA.

Must Haves

Active TS/SCI with CI polygraph is required
Linux exp - specifically utilizing Ubuntu
Automation Exp - Python - need a hands on keyboard developer
Extensive Kubernetes Exp

JOB DESCRIPTION

If you enjoy working with new technologies, enterprise-leading equipment, and seek to design, deploy, and maintain development pipelines, we would like to speak to you. This position will play a key critical role in building, maintaining, and optimizing the underlying infrastructure to support Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.

You will join a diverse team of platform engineers to design, deploy, maintain, and secure platform infrastructure. You will collaborate with people inside and outside the organization to deliver the highest standards for building, deploying, and securing infrastructure.

Core Competencies - Technical

Cluster Management: Extensive experience designing, deploying, securing, maintaining, and upgrading highly available, scalable Kubernetes clusters (e.g., EKS, AKS, GKE, OpenShift, or self-managed). This includes understanding control plane components, worker nodes, and their interactions.
Containerization & Orchestration: Proficient with Docker and containerization best practices, along with advanced knowledge of Kubernetes primitives like Pods, Deployments, StatefulSets, Services, Ingress, ConfigMaps, Secrets, Persistent Volumes, and Namespaces.
Networking: Strong understanding of Kubernetes networking concepts (CNI plugins like Calico or Cilium), network policies, service meshes (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), and DNS within and outside the cluster.
Security: Expertise in securing Kubernetes environments, including RBAC, Pod Security Policies/Admission Controllers, vulnerability scanning, secret management (e.g., Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), and network security.
Performance & Optimization: Ability to diagnose and resolve complex performance issues within Kubernetes, optimize resource utilization, and implement best practices for cluster tuning.
Troubleshooting: Advanced troubleshooting skills for identifying and resolving issues across the entire Kubernetes stack, from infrastructure to application-level problems.
CI/CD Tooling: Hands-on experience with popular CI/CD platforms like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Tekton, Argo Workflows, or similar.
Pipeline Design & Implementation: Ability to design, implement, and maintain robust, automated CI/CD pipelines for deploying containerized applications to Kubernetes, adhering to best practices like GitOps.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Proficiency with IaC tools such as Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation for provisioning and managing infrastructure declaratively. Experience with Helm charts and Kustomize for Kubernetes application packaging and deployment.
Automation Scripting: Strong scripting skills in languages like Python, Go, Bash, or similar, for automating tasks, creating custom tooling, and integrating various systems.
GitOps Methodologies : Practical experience with GitOps workflows and tools like Argo CD for automated deployments and continuous delivery.
Monitoring & Alerting : Experience implementing and maintaining comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions for Kubernetes clusters and applications (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack/OpenSearch, Datadog, Splunk).
Logging & Tracing : Familiarity with centralized logging solutions and distributed tracing for effective debugging and performance analysis.
DevOps & SRE Principles : Deep understanding of DevOps culture, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, and "you build it, you run it" philosophy.
Version Control: Expert in Git and collaborative development workflows.
Testing: Understanding of various testing methodologies (unit, integration, end-to-end) within the context of platform and pipeline development.
Linux/Unix: Strong background in Linux system administration, including networking, file systems, process management, and troubleshooting.
Networking Concepts: Solid understanding of core networking protocols (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, Load Balancing).

Core Competencies - Leadership

Problem-Solving: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills to diagnose and resolve complex technical issues in distributed systems.
Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills to collaborate effectively with development teams, operations, security, and other stakeholders.
Collaboration: Ability to work effectively in a team environment, mentor junior engineers, and lead technical initiatives.
Mentorship: As a Senior role, the ability to guide and mentor junior engineers, share knowledge, and foster best practices.
Proactive & Ownership: Proactive approach to identifying and addressing potential issues, with a strong sense of ownership over the platform.
Adaptability & Continuous Learning: Eagerness to learn new technologies and adapt to a rapidly evolving cloud-native landscape.

Additional Skills & Requirements

Relevant certifications (e.g., CKA, CKAD, CKS, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, Azure DevOps Engineer Expert).
Experience with specific Kubernetes operators, custom resource definitions (CRDs), or building internal developer platforms (IDPs).
Travel up to 20% of the time, as required, to perform on-site installations, maintenance, and troubleshooting activities at customer sites or data centers.

Clearance Requirements

Active TS/SCI clearance with Counterintelligence polygraph
Have current IAM Level II to satisfy DOD 8570 IAT requirements

Employment Prerequisites

The following requirements must be met to be eligible for this position: successful completion of a background investigation and drug urinalysis.

SOC, a Day & Zimmermann company, is an Equal Opportunity Employer, EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability.

Note

Any pay ranges displayed are estimations, which may have been provided by job boards. Actual pay is determined by an applicant's experience, technical expertise, and other qualifications as listed in the job description. All qualified applicants are welcome to apply.

Estimated Salary