Senior Platform Engineer – TS Required

Jobtailor; Sterling (VA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to build and scale a secure in-house infrastructure for a high-assurance environment. You will design and operate virtualization, networking, identity, and monitoring stacks, standing infrastructure up from bare metal and automating end-to-end while maintaining documentation and auditability.

The role requires deep hypervisor expertise, strong security skills, and fluency in IaC, Python, and Bash to deliver production-ready platforms with robust

Qualifications

• 5+ years in platform, infrastructure, systems, or DevOps engineering.
• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• Deep hands-on with a Type-1 hypervisor (Proxmox VE, KVM/QEMU, VMware ESXi) including clustering, shared storage, templating, and GPU passthrough.
• Strong network and security skills: segmentation, stateful firewalls, zero-trust / least-privilege design, VPNs, DNS, PKI/mTLS, and TCP/IP fundamentals.
• Demonstrated endpoint and OS hardening across Linux and Windows to CIS/STIG baselines: full-disk encryption, measured boot, host firewalls, and attack-surface reduction.
• Fluency in infrastructure-as-code and automation (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, Packer) plus Python and Bash, with a track record of shipping and maintaining working tooling and pipelines.
• Working knowledge of secrets management, containerization, Git and CI/CD, and an observability/SIEM stack.
• Proven ability to stand up infrastructure from bare metal to operational, document it in runbooks, and operate it under security- and audit-sensitive conditions.

Responsibilities

• Build, secure, administer, and scale the in-house infrastructure.
• Design and operate the virtualization, networking, identity, and monitoring stacks.
• Document environments with runbooks and maintain security/auditability.
• Turn architecture into a resilient, production-ready capability.

Skills

TS/SCI Clearance

Hypervisor Expertise

IaC Fluency

Network Security

Linux Admin

Python

Bash

CI/CD

Git

Documentation

Tools

Proxmox VE

KVM/QEMU

VMware ESXi

Terraform

Ansible

Packer

Git

CI/CD tooling

Observability/SIEM Stack

VPNs

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Platform Engineer to build, secure, administer, and scale the in-house infrastructure that supports a sensitive, high-assurance environment.
You will design and operate the virtualization, networking, identity, and monitoring stack our teams depend on - standing infrastructure up from bare metal, automating it end to end, and keeping it secure, reliable, and auditable.
The ideal candidate pairs deep hypervisor and Linux systems expertise with strong network and endpoint security, infrastructure-as-code fluency, and the discipline to run a controlled, well-documented environment.
You will own the platform end to end - virtualization, segmentation, identity and secrets, software supply chain, and observability - and turn architecture into a resilient, production-ready capability.

Requirements

• 5+ years in platform, infrastructure, systems, or DevOps engineering - building and administering production virtualization, networking, and Linux environments.
• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• Deep hands-on expertise with a Type-1 hypervisor (Proxmox VE, KVM/QEMU, VMware ESXi, or equivalent), including clustering, shared storage, templating, and GPU passthrough.
• Strong network engineering and security skills: segmentation, stateful firewalls, zero-trust / least-privilege design, VPNs, DNS, PKI/mTLS, and TCP/IP fundamentals.
• Demonstrated endpoint and OS hardening across Linux and Windows to CIS/STIG baselines: full-disk encryption, measured boot, host firewalls, and attack-surface reduction.
• Fluency in infrastructure-as-code and automation (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, Packer) plus Python and Bash, with a track record of shipping and maintaining working tooling and pipelines.
• Working knowledge of secrets management, containerization, Git and CI/CD, and an observability/SIEM stack.
• Proven ability to stand up infrastructure from bare metal to operational, document it in runbooks, and operate it under security- and audit-sensitive conditions.

Core Competencies

Demonstrates expertise in building and securing high-assurance infrastructure, with a focus on virtualization, networking, and automation. Proficient in managing complex environments with a strong emphasis on security, documentation, and operational excellence.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Active TS/SCI Clearance
• Type-1 Hypervisor Expertise
• Infrastructure-as-Code Fluency
• Network Security Skills
• Linux Systems Administration

ATS Optimization Keywords

Hard Skills

• Virtualization
• Linux Systems Administration
• Network Engineering
• Endpoint Security
• Infrastructure-as-Code
• Automation
• Python
• Bash
• CIS/STIG Compliance
• Documentation

Industry Keywords

• High-Assurance Environment
• Zero-Trust Design
• Stateful Firewalls
• Secrets Management
• Full-Disk Encryption
• Measured Boot
• Attack-Surface Reduction
• Clustering
• Shared Storage
• Documentation in Runbooks

Tools & Technologies

• Proxmox VE
• KVM/QEMU
• VMware ESXi
• Terraform
• Ansible
• Packer
• Git
• CI/CD
• Observability/SIEM Stack
• VPNs