Senior Cloud Systems Administrator

Black Canyon Consulting LLC; Fairfax (VA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision coverage

401k plan with employer contribution

Paid holidays and vacation

Job summary

Black Canyon Consulting LLC is seeking a Senior Cloud Systems Administrator to join a team supporting the NCBI at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. The role centers on designing, automating, and managing multi-cloud environments across AWS and GCP.

The ideal candidate has 10+ years of Unix/Linux administration, strong IaC with Terraform, Kubernetes, Puppet, and Python/Bash scripting; must work independently within a senior cloud group.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of dedicated, hands-on Unix/Linux systems administration experience.
• 3+ years managing production workloads in AWS or GCP.
• IaC experience with Terraform and Git.
• Proficiency with Kubernetes in multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
• Experience with Puppet for configuration management.
• Experience with high-throughput web services and performance tuning.
• Strong Python and Bash scripting/automation.
• Ability to work independently and in a senior cloud team.

Responsibilities

• Design, automate, manage, and optimize multi-cloud environments across GCP and AWS.
• Develop and maintain IaC using Terraform.
• Design and maintain VPCs, subnets, routing, security groups, and hybrid interconnects.
• Implement telemetry, dashboards, and alerts with AWS CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and GCP Operations.
• Provide support for multi-cloud infrastructure, incident response, and performance tuning.

Skills

Unix/Linux administration

AWS

GCP

Terraform

Kubernetes

Puppet

Python

Bash

Security/compliance (FedRAMP/NIST)

Networking

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

Puppet

Git

Job description

Overview

Black Canyon Consulting (BCC) is searching for a Senior Cloud Systems Administrator to join an established team of cloud professionals supporting high-throughput scientific computing and enterprise applications for the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), an institute of the National Institutes of Health. This opportunity is full time at the NCBI in Bethesda, MD.

In this role, you will design, automate, manage, and optimize production multi-cloud environments across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). We are seeking a self-sufficient administrator with deep Unix/Linux systems administration experience who can manage production cloud infrastructure from day one.

Responsibilities

• Multi-Cloud Administration: Design, administer, and maintain world-class environments across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Author, test, review, and maintain modular infrastructure code using Terraform.
• Cloud Networking & Security: Design and maintain VPCs, subnets, routing tables, security groups, firewall rules, and hybrid interconnects ensuring compliance with federal security standards.
• Monitoring & Observability: Implement and maintain telemetry, dashboards, and alerting across AWS CloudWatch/CloudTrail and GCP Cloud Operations.
• Operations & Troubleshooting: Provide support for multi-cloud infrastructure, including responding to security incidents, performance monitoring, and tuning.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of dedicated, hands-on enterprise Unix/Linux systems administration experience, with deep technical proficiency in systems internals, networking protocols, filesystems, and troubleshooting.
• 3+ years of direct operational experience administering production workloads in Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Strong, demonstrated proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and git.
• High proficiency with Kubernetes, including multi-cloud and cloud/on-prem hybrid environments.
• Practical working knowledge of configuration management using Puppet (manifests, module structure, and Hiera) for systems integration and node provisioning.
• Experience with high-throughput web services, including HTTP/S internals, request flows, caching semantics, and performance tuning.
• Strong scripting and automation skills in Python and Bash.
• Proven ability to operate independently and collaboratively in a team of senior cloud administrators.

Preferred Qualifications

• Practical operational familiarity with Alma Linux 8 or similar distributions.
• Experience managing cloud environments in federal or biomedical research contexts subject to NIST / FedRAMP security frameworks.

Benefits and Salary

We attract the best people in the business with our competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision coverage, 401k plan with employer contribution, paid holidays, vacation, and tuition reimbursement.

We offer a competitive salary commensurate with experience and location.