Senior Elastic Platform Engineer – DoD Kubernetes Expert

Zachary Piper, LLC; Illinois; Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Zachary Piper Solutions seeks a Senior Elastic Platform Engineer to support a DoD modernization initiative at Scott AFB, IL. The role focuses on building, deploying, and maintaining enterprise Elastic environments with Kubernetes, ECK, and Cribl integration for secure observability and logging.

Ideal candidates bring 7+ years in platform/SRE roles, strong Kubernetes expertise, and hands-on Elastic deployments. Onsite work five days a week is required, with Secret clearance highly preferred.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, or SRE.
• Hands-on experience deploying and supporting enterprise Elastic Stack environments.
• Strong Kubernetes experience, including containerized deployments.
• Experience designing and managing large‑scale logging/observability platforms.
• Familiarity with ECK or equivalent Kubernetes/Elastic expertise.
• Ability to work onsite five days per week at Scott Air Force Base, IL.
• Active Secret Clearance required (Interim Secret or Interim Top Secret may be considered).

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and maintain enterprise Elastic Stack environments for logging, search, and observability.
• Build and administer Elastic clusters on Kubernetes in production.
• Deploy and manage Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) using Kubernetes operators.
• Develop and maintain custom data ingestion pipelines for operational data.
• Integrate Elastic with Cribl and other data collection platforms.
• Configure ILM, data retention, and cluster optimization strategies.
• Support containerized infrastructure in Rancher-managed Kubernetes environments.
• Troubleshoot Elastic, Kubernetes, and distributed platform issues in production.
• Collaborate to improve platform automation, reliability, and scalability.
• Document architecture, deployment standards, and procedures.

Skills

Elastic Stack

Kubernetes

SRE

Data pipelines

Tools

ECK

Cribl

Rancher

Kubernetes operators

Job description

Senior Elastic Platform Engineer – Scott Air Force Base, IL

Zachary Piper Solutions is seeking an experienced Senior Elastic Platform Engineer to support a mission-critical Department of Defense modernization initiative at Scott Air Force Base, IL. This role is ideal for a senior Platform Engineer with strong expertise in Elastic, Kubernetes, and containerized infrastructure who can build, deploy, and maintain enterprise-scale Elastic environments supporting secure operational and observability platforms. The ideal candidate will have experience owning Elastic environments, designing scalable data pipelines, and supporting Kubernetes-based deployments. Experience with ECK (Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes) and Cribl is highly desired, while prior security or SIEM experience is considered a plus.

SECRET CLEARANCE REQUIRED

Key Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and maintain enterprise Elastic Stack environments supporting logging, search, and observability.
• Build and administer Elastic clusters running on Kubernetes in production environments.
• Deploy and manage Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) using Kubernetes operators.
• Develop and maintain custom data ingestion pipelines for operational and application data.
• Integrate Elastic environments with tools such as Cribl and other data collection platforms.
• Configure Index Lifecycle Management (ILM), data retention, and cluster optimization strategies.
• Support containerized infrastructure running in Rancher-managed Kubernetes environments.
• Troubleshoot Elastic, Kubernetes, and distributed platform issues across production systems.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to improve platform automation, reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Document architecture, deployment standards, and operational procedures.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Platform Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or related disciplines.
• Hands-on experience deploying and supporting enterprise Elastic Stack environments.
• Strong Kubernetes experience, including containerized application deployments.
• Experience building Elastic clusters and managing large-scale logging or observability platforms.
• Familiarity with Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) or the ability to demonstrate equivalent Kubernetes and Elastic expertise.
• Experience designing custom ingestion pipelines and integrating enterprise data sources.
• Ability to work onsite five days per week at Scott Air Force Base, IL.
• Active Secret Clearance required (Interim Secret or Interim Top Secret may be considered).

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) deployments.
• Experience with Cribl for log routing and data pipeline management.
• Experience supporting Rancher-managed Kubernetes environments.
• Experience with Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE) or Elastic Cloud Hosted (ECH).
• Experience supporting Splunk-to-Elastic migrations.
• Background supporting DoD, federal, or classified environments.
• Experience with SIEM, security logging, or enterprise observability platforms.

Soft Skills

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting abilities.
• Ability to independently own and support enterprise platform environments.
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, mission-critical environments.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical teams and government stakeholders.
• Self-motivated with the ability to mentor teammates and contribute to platform best practices.

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation: $190,000–$240,000 annually.
• Long-term, fully funded federal program supporting enterprise platform modernization.
• Opportunity to build and maintain mission-critical Elastic infrastructure supporting the U.S. Air Force.
• Relocation assistance available (approximately $4,000–$5,000+, based on negotiations).

Keywords

platform engineer, senior platform engineer, elastic engineer, elastic stack, Elasticsearch, Kibana, logstash, beats, elastic cloud on Kubernetes, eck, Kubernetes, rancher, cribl, observability, enterprise logging, platform engineering, site reliability engineer, sre, infrastructure engineering, devops, containerization, docker, Kubernetes operator, elastic clusters, data ingestion, pipeline integrations, index lifecycle management, ilm, production engineering, distributed systems, logging infrastructure, monitoring, telemetry, Splunk migration, elastic migration, ece, ech, Linux, cloud infrastructure, federal infrastructure, dod, Scott air force base, secret clearance, classified environments, enterprise platforms, automation, production support

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