Principal Systems Admin - Hybrid Windows/Linux & GPU AI Infra

1st-edge-llc; Huntsville (TN); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

1st Edge is seeking a hands-on Principal Systems Administrator to support a hybrid Windows/Linux infrastructure across engineering and AI development teams. This role owns day-to-day administration, troubleshooting, and secure infrastructure maintenance for both enterprise IT and lab/test environments.

Responsibilities include designing VMware vSphere, managing AD/DNS/DHCP, FL/GPu compute resources, and ensuring DoD/CMMC compliance while supporting SI/CI pipelines and hybrid cloud connectivity.

Qualifications

• Active DoD security clearance (or clearance-eligible).
• Bachelor's degree required.
• 10+ years of systems administration experience with at least 3 years in a mixed Windows/Linux environment.
• Experience with AD, DNS, DHCP, and PKI/Certificate Services.
• Production Linux server administration (Ubuntu, RHEL, Rocky Linux or similar).
• Design/build VMware vSphere environments from scratch (not just admin).
• Networking fundamentals: switches, VPNs, firewalls, and secure comms.
• Experience with enterprise backups, monitoring, and logging solutions.
• Scripting ability (Bash, Python, or PowerShell) to automate tasks.
• Strong troubleshooting and cross-functional collaboration.
• Understanding of DoD/CMMC compliance in defense contracting.

Responsibilities

• Administer Windows Server infra including AD, DNS, DHCP, and Certificate Services.
• Manage Linux servers (Ubuntu, Rocky/RHEL) across engineering and development environments.
• Design/build VMware vSphere with GPU-accelerated compute environments.
• Manage networking infrastructure including switches, VPNs, firewalls, and secure communications.
• Troubleshoot hardware, software, and systems integration across lab/test environments.
• Collaborate with engineering and software teams for integration efforts.
• Maintain hybrid on‑prem/cloud connectivity (Entra ID / GCC High).
• Support infrastructure for software development and AI/ML workloads with GPU compute and job scheduling.
• Maintain secure infrastructure compliant with CMMC requirements.
• Support SLURM-based clusters for ML training pipelines.
• Hands-on admin across Windows and Linux, including patching, backups, monitoring, and incident response.
• Write and maintain automation scripts for routine administration tasks.

Skills

DoD security clearance

Bachelor's Degree

10+ years of sysadmin experience

Windows/Linux mixed environment

Active Directory

DNS

DHCP

PKI/Certificate Services

VMware vSphere

Linux server administration

Scripting Bash/Python/PowerShell

Networking fundamentals

Backups/Monitoring/Logging

DoD/CMMC compliance

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

GitLab

Artifactory

MLflow

SLURM

Job description

1st Edge is seeking a hands-on Principal Systems Administrator to support a hybrid Windows/Linux infrastructure across engineering and AI development teams. This role owns day-to-day administration, troubleshooting, and secure infrastructure maintenance for both enterprise IT and lab/test environments.

Responsibilities include designing VMware vSphere, managing AD/DNS/DHCP, FL/GPu compute resources, and ensuring DoD/CMMC compliance while supporting SI/CI pipelines and hybrid cloud connectivity.