Senior Laboratory IT Architect Manager

KBR, Inc; Huntsville (AL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

KBR, Inc is seeking a Senior Laboratory IT Architect Manager in Huntsville to lead a team, modernize classified lab infrastructure, and enable DevSecOps for AI platforms and SDLC workflows. The role combines hands‑on technical leadership with staff management and strategic planning.

The successful candidate will oversee Windows/Linux environments, container platforms, security compliance, and performance metrics while collaborating with government stakeholders on transformation initiatives and

Qualifications

• Minimum 10+ years in IT/infrastructure roles with leadership experience.
• Experience administering Windows and Linux in classified environments.
• Strong background in DevSecOps, containerization, and secure software delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of SysAdmins and infrastructure engineers.
• Modernize and sustain classified lab infrastructure and AI platforms.
• Establish DevSecOps processes and operational dashboards.
• Ensure RMF/NIST compliance and security posture.

Skills

Leadership

Windows Admin

Linux Admin

DevSecOps

Kubernetes/OpenShift

RMF/NIST Compliance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field

Active Top Secret/SCI clearance

Tools

CI/CD Tooling

Container Platforms

Job description

Senior Laboratory IT Architect Manager

Program Summary

KBR’s Missile, Aviation, and Ground Systems (MAGS) division delivers mission engineering solutions for critical U.S. Army programs, specializing in aviation and ground systems, integrated air and missile defense, and threat and target systems. As a trusted partner of the U.S. Department of War, MAGS provides innovative, technology-driven solutions to enhance national security. With a global presence and a strong ethical framework, KBR ensures secure, effective, and mission-ready capabilities worldwide.

Position Summary

KBR is seeking a highly experienced Senior Laboratory IT Architect Manager to lead a team responsible for the administration, modernization, and sustainment of classified infrastructure undergoing a Digital Transformation initiative to support rearchitecting laboratory operations, software development environments, AI platforms, and DevSecOps ecosystems. This role combines hands‑on technical leadership with personnel management responsibilities. The selected candidate will oversee daily operations of system administrators and infrastructure engineers while serving as the technical authority for server administration, management of containerized platforms, establishing and enabling a DevSecOps infrastructure, and enterprise IT operations.

Responsibilities include management of Windows and Linux environments, network‑connected infrastructure, container orchestration platforms, cybersecurity compliance activities, ticketing system modernization, operational metrics development, and workforce planning. This individual will play a key role in developing the solutions architecture to enable and facilitate ongoing digital transformation efforts in the laboratory. Solutions will include, but are not limited to, establishing a DevSecOps process and architecting an “Air‑gapped” Artificial Intelligence system hosted in a classified environment. The successful candidate will establish operational processes, define service‑level metrics, collect and analyze performance data, and provide recommendations to leadership regarding staffing, workload balancing, infrastructure investments, and process improvements. This individual will play a key role in developing a scalable, secure, and highly available infrastructure foundation supporting current and future mission requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Operations: Lead, mentor, task, and develop a team of Systems Administrators and infrastructure personnel. Provide daily work assignments, prioritization guidance, mentorship, and performance feedback to team members. Establish operational standards, procedures, and best practices for infrastructure support and sustainment. Coordinate activities across engineering, cybersecurity, software development, and government stakeholder teams. Support hiring, onboarding, workforce development, and succession planning initiatives. Serve as the primary escalation point for infrastructure‑related issues and operational challenges.
• Service Management & Metrics: Lead the assessment, modernization, and continuous improvement of the organization’s ticket management system and associated workflows. Establish service‑level objectives, performance indicators, and operational metrics for infrastructure and support services. Develop dashboards and reporting mechanisms to provide visibility into workload, response times, system health, resource utilization, and operational effectiveness. Analyze support trends and infrastructure demand to develop staffing recommendations and forecast future resource requirements. Measure team productivity, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction to drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Systems Administration & Infrastructure: Oversee administration, configuration, and maintenance of classified Windows and Linux server environments. Lead deployment and sustainment of enterprise infrastructure supporting software development, AI workloads, modeling and simulation activities, and laboratory operations. Manage system lifecycle activities including installation, upgrades, patching, configuration management, and technology refresh efforts. Ensure system availability, reliability, performance, and compliance across classified environments. Support networking infrastructure, including switches, routers, firewalls, and connected server platforms.
• DevSecOps & Container Platforms: Lead deployment, administration, and sustainment of DevSecOps infrastructure and supporting toolchains. Architect and manage containerized environments utilizing Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker, Podman, or equivalent technologies. Oversee CI/CD platforms, source code management systems, security scanning solutions, automation frameworks, and Infrastructure as Code implementations. Support multi‑tenant development environments while ensuring security, isolation, and compliance requirements are maintained. Collaborate with software engineering teams to improve infrastructure automation and platform reliability.
• AI Platform Support: Support infrastructure hosting AI and machine learning workloads, including GPU‑enabled compute resources and on‑premises AI platforms. Assist in planning and sustaining scalable AI infrastructure, model hosting environments, and associated storage and networking resources. Collaborate with AI architects and technical leadership on future platform modernization initiatives.
• Cybersecurity & Compliance: Ensure infrastructure complies with RMF, NIST800‑53, DISASTIGs, DoD Zero Trust, and organizational security requirements. Support cybersecurity accreditation activities and Authority to Operate (ATO) sustainment efforts. Lead vulnerability remediation initiatives, compliance reporting, security monitoring, and audit preparation activities. Partner closely with Information Assurance and Cybersecurity teams to maintain secure operational environments.

Required Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship
• Active Secret Security Clearance
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Cybersecurity, Mathematics, or a related STEM discipline with 10+ years of relevant experience, or a Master’s degree with 5+ years of relevant experience.
• Minimum 3 years of demonstrated leadership experience leading, supervising, or managing systems administration, infrastructure operations.
• Experience administering Windows and Linux systems within classified environments.
• Experience operating and maintaining secure, mission‑critical infrastructure supporting development, testing, and operational workloads.
• Strong understanding of networking, virtualization, storage systems, distributed systems, cloud architecture, platform engineering, and enterprise infrastructure design.
• Experience working with containerized and/or cloud‑native technologies. (e.g. Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker, Podman, etc.)
• Experience working with environments handling DevSecOps processes in CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with Machine Learning and AI infrastructure, platforms, high‑performance computing (HPC) environments and supporting technologies.
• Experience handling and processing structured and unstructured data sources, including Microsoft products, software repositories, databases, and binary file formats.
• Experience developing operational metrics, performance dashboards, workload analytics, and workforce planning recommendations.
• Experience supporting RMF‑compliant environments and cybersecurity frameworks, including NIST800‑53, DISASTIGs, and DoD security requirements.
• Excellent communication, leadership, collaboration, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Desired Qualifications

• Demonstrated success leading infrastructure modernization initiatives, operational transformation efforts, and continuous process improvement programs.
• Experience designing, implementing, or sustaining AI Platform‑as‑a‑Service (AI PaaS) environments, including agent orchestration, agentic architectures, conversational AI technologies, and AI service integration.
• Experience providing technical guidance for the design and operation of secure, regulated, and multi‑tenant AI platforms.
• DoD8570/8140 IAT LevelII certification or higher.
• CISSP, Security+, CASP+, CySA+, CEH, SSCP, RHCSA, RHCE, CKA, CKAD, or equivalent certifications.
• DevSecOps toolchains and practices, including Git, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and automated software delivery.
• Experience deploying and managing application security and code‑scanning tools such as Trivy, SonarQube, Checkmarx, or equivalent solutions.
• Experience supporting source code management platforms and software development organizations.
• Experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environments.
• Experience deploying and scaling Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions utilizing role‑based and attribute‑based access control models.
• Experience supporting cybersecurity accreditation activities, SDREN‑connected environments, and Trellix security solutions.
• Experience creating executive dashboards, operational metrics, workload analytics, and reporting solutions to support staffing and resource planning.
• Experience managing enterprise IT service management (ITSM) and ticketing platforms such as ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Remedy, or similar solutions.
• Experience with NVIDIA GPU technologies, distributed computing environments, GPU resource allocation, and performance optimization for AI workloads.
• Experience deploying and scaling large language model (LLM) inference platforms using vLLM, NVIDIA NIM, or similar technologies.
• Experience implementing MLOps platforms, including model lifecycle management, evaluation pipelines, model registries, and continuous AI delivery practices.
• Experience deploying and administering vector databases, including OpenSearch, Elasticsearch, or equivalent technologies supporting data segmentation and information flow controls.

Company Culture

Belong, Connect and Grow at KBR

At KBR, we are passionate about our people and our Zero Harm culture. These inform all that we do and are at the heart of our commitment to, and ongoing journey toward being a People First company. That commitment is central to our team’s philosophy and fosters an environment where everyone can Belong, Connect and Grow. We Deliver – Together.

KBR is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

KBR — Delivering Solutions, Changing the World.

KBR brings together the best and brightest to deliver science, technology and engineering solutions that help governments and companies around the world accomplish their most critical missions and objectives. In everything we do, we are guided by our ONE KBR Values: We Value Our People – We create diverse, inclusive environments in which each person can feel safe, respected and valued, and where everyone has opportunities to grow and reach their full potential. We Deliver – We are uncompromising in our commitment to deliver innovative, high‑quality, technology‑led solutions for our customers and exceptional, sustainable value for all our stakeholders. We Are People of Integrity – We value honesty, trust, courage, fairness, prudence and tenacity. We believe doing what’s right for the planet, the communities where we work, and our people is good for business. We Empower – We empower our people with a shared purpose, the right tools and the supportive culture they need to be proactive decision‑makers, to be adaptive to change, and to succeed. We Are a Team of Teams – We have a will to succeed, but we value the achievements of our team of teams over individual accomplishments. Our collective focus makes us a better, stronger, more effective company. We have also embedded environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in every business operation and corporate function. Not only are we committed to operating safely, sustainably and equitably, but we are also committed to using our capabilities and expertise to help our customers accomplish their sustainability goals. Worldwide, KBR employs a diverse workforce approximately 29,000 people strong, with customers in more than 80 countries and operations in 40 countries. At KBR, We Deliver.