Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer SME

ECS Corporate Services; Springfield (VA); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Everforth ECS in Fairfax/Springfield, VA, seeks a Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer SME to own OpenShift production clusters across cloud, on‑premises, and hybrid environments for a large DoD program. You will architect, deploy, upgrade, secure, and troubleshoot OpenShift, mentor engineers, and coordinate with program management, cybersecurity, and vendor teams.

Requires 7+ years in infrastructure engineering, 3+ years OpenShift in production, active TS clearance, and hands‑on Kubernetes

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent directly relevant experience.
• Active TS security clearance; SCI access and CI polygraph eligible.
• 7+ years in infrastructure/platform engineering; 3+ years OpenShift in production.
• Experience deploying and operating OpenShift in cloud, on‑premises, and hybrid environments.
• Strong Kubernetes architecture, deployment, and troubleshooting skills.
• Security hardening and vulnerability remediation in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Architect, plan, deploy, administer, upgrade, and sustain OpenShift across cloud, on‑premises, and hybrid infrastructure.
• Own OpenShift cluster lifecycle: installation, configuration, upgrades, patching, backup/restore, certs, operators.
• Resolve production OpenShift failures; perform root cause analysis and recommend improvements.
• Mentor engineers; establish platform standards; communicate risks to leadership.
• Integrate OpenShift with CI/CD pipelines, registries, and security tooling.
• Ensure security compliance and remediation across DoD environments.

Skills

Mentoring engineers

Technical leadership

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Red Hat OpenShift

Kubernetes

Helm

GitOps

Infrastructure as Code

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Everforth ECS is seeking a Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer Subject Matter Expert (SME) to work Hybrid remote/onsite supporting Fairfax, VA and/or Springfield, VA customer location.

Regular SCIF/onsite support is expected approximately 3-4 days per week, with additional onsite support as required for critical deployments, maintenance, or operational issues.

Note: This position is contingent upon additional funding.

Everforth ECS is seeking a Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support a large DoD program operating across AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, classified cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.

The SME will serve as a technical authority for the architecture, deployment, administration, optimization, security, sustainment, and troubleshooting of RedHat OpenShift environments across multiple classification levels.

The successful candidate will coordinate with cloud, infrastructure, cybersecurity, Program and Project Management, Customer, and Partner teams.

This is a hands‑on SME role for an engineer capable of owning production OpenShift clusters, resolving complex platform failures, establishing technical standards, mentoring other engineers, and advising leadership on architecture, risk, and technical tradeoffs.

Responsibilities include: Architect, plan, deploy, administer, upgrade, optimize, and sustain RedHat OpenShift environments across cloud, on‑premises, and hybrid infrastructure and applicable DoD impact/classification levels.

Own OpenShift cluster lifecycle activities including installation, configuration, upgrades, patching, backup/restore, certificate management, operators, security, networking, storage, performance, and capacity management.

Serve as the senior escalation point for production OpenShift failures and perform root cause analysis across control plane and worker nodes, operators, networking, storage, ingress, DNS, authentication/RBAC, certificates, registries, workload, resource constraints, and cluster health/performance.

Support onboarding of customer and partner/vendor teams and coordinate with Program/Project Management and engineering teams to ensure appropriate resources, dependencies, and operational support.

Implement and troubleshoot OpenShift/Kubernetes networking to include Services, Routes/Ingress, DNS, network policies, load balancing, and integration with enterprise networking and firewalls.

Integrate and troubleshoot persistent storage using Storage Classes, Persistent Volumes/Claims, and enterprise/cloud storage platforms.

Automate OpenShift/Kubernetes infrastructure and application configuration using Infrastructure as code, configuration management, Helm, and GitOps methodologies.

Integrate OpenShift with enterprise CI/CD pipelines, container registries, artifact repositories, security scanning, and GitOps workflows.

Maintain security compliance and execute remediation, patching, vulnerability management, and POA&M activities required to sustain applicable ATOs.

Develop architecture, configuration, operating, troubleshooting, and knowledge transfer documentation; cross train engineers and establish repeatable platform standards and procedures.

Advise Government customers, project management, engineering teams, and leadership on OpenShift architecture, migrations, platform operations, technical risks, tradeoffs, and recommended solutions.

Support OpenShift platforms hosting AI/ML, data intensive, and other mission requirements/lines of effort as required.

Track relevant platform and industry developments and con tribute to solutioning, capture, and proposal activities as needed.

Required Skills:

Bachelor of Science degree or equivalent directly relevant experience, subject contractual labor category requirements.

Must posses an active TS security clearance and be eligible and willing to obtain SCI access and a CI polygraph.

7+ years of responsible and relevant infrastructure/platform engineering experience, including substantial hands on Kubernetes experiences and at least 3+ years of hands on production RedHat OpenShift engineering/administration experience.

Expertise designing, deploying, administering, upgrading, and troubleshooting Red Hat OpenShift clusters in production environments.

Demonstrated experience operating OpenShift across enterprise cloud, on‑premises, and/or hybrid infrastructure environments.

Expertise with Kubernetes architecture, deployment, administration, workload management, and troubleshooting.

Strong Linux systems administration experience with RHEL and Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS).

Hands on experience with OpenShift/Kubernetes environments using Infrastructure as Code, configuration management, Helm, and/or GitOps methodologies.

Experience implementing security hardening, vulnerability remediation, patching, and configuration compliance in regulated or DoD environments.

Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure and experience deploying or operating OpenShift/Kubernetes within AWS, Azure, or comparable enterprise cloud environmetns.

Demonstrated ability to independently troubleshoot complex production platform issues, perform root cause analysis, and develop actional technical recommendations.

Demonstrated ability to serve as a technical escalation point person, mentor engineers, establish platform standards, and communicate technical risks and tradeoffs to customers and leadership.

Strong customer focus and strong written, verbal, analytical and problem solving skills.

DOD 8570-01M certification: IAM Level I or better (e.g., Security+).

Salary: $175,000-210,000