Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer SME

ecsfederal; Virginia (MN, WA); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Everforth ECS seeks a Red Hat OpenShift Cloud Engineer SME to own production OpenShift clusters across hybrid environments, including AWS GovCloud and on‑prem DoD workloads. The role requires an active TS clearance and willingness to travel to VA customer sites.

You will drive architecture, deployment, upgrades, troubleshooting, and security hardening, mentor engineers, and coordinate with cloud, cybersecurity, PM, and customer teams to enforce standards and ensure mission readiness.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in infrastructure/platform engineering with hands-on Kubernetes.
• 3+ years of production Red Hat OpenShift engineering/administration.
• Active TS clearance and willingness to obtain SCI access.
• Experience with DoD/regulatory environments.
• Experience across AWS, Azure, or hybrid clouds.

Responsibilities

• Architect, deploy, and sustain OpenShift across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
• Own cluster lifecycle: install, upgrade, patch, backup/restore, certificates.
• Serve as senior escalation point for production OpenShift failures and conduct root cause analysis.
• Mentor engineers and establish platform standards.
• Integrate OpenShift with CI/CD pipelines and security tooling.
• Maintain security compliance and perform vulnerability management.
• Coordinate with Government customers and project teams on architecture and risk.
• Support DoD program requirements and funding considerations.

Skills

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Linux administration

Infrastructure as Code

GitOps

Security compliance

Troubleshooting

Leadership / mentoring

Education

Bachelor of Science or equivalent experience

Tools

Helm

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 locations. 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 Red Hat 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 Red Hat 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 contribute 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 Red Hat 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

General Description of Benefits