Senior Proxmox Cluster Administrator

Peraton; College Park (MD); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology services provider is seeking a Senior Proxmox Cluster Administrator to manage critical virtualized environments in College Park, MD. The role focuses on hands-on operations, ensuring platform reliability and security posture, and includes responsibilities like administering Proxmox VE clusters and leading incident response efforts. Ideal candidates will have substantial experience with Linux administration and virtualization, along with relevant certifications. This position requires full-time on-site work and US citizenship with TS/SCI clearance.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 12+ years of experience and a Bachelor's, 10+ years and a Master's, or 8+ years and a Ph.D. in Computer Science or related discipline.
• Senior experience administering Linux infrastructure in production (RHEL/Ubuntu).
• Experience operating a virtualization platform at scale.
• Proficiency in automation using Ansible and scripting in Bash and/or Python.
• At least one active technical certification in systems engineering, information security, or related fields.
• US Citizenship with an active/current TS/SCI w/ Polygraph.
• US Citizenship with an active TS/SCI w/ Polygraph.

Responsibilities

• Administer and sustain Proxmox VE clusters.
• Standardize VM/LXC provisioning.
• Lead incident response and troubleshooting across compute/network/storage.
• Manage Proxmox host networking.
• Own backup/restore and DR readiness for virtualization workloads.
• Maintain platform documentation and support audit-ready artifacts.
• Partner with teams to onboard workloads and enhance operations.

Skills

Linux administration

Automation with Ansible

Scripting in Bash/Python

Virtualization (Proxmox VE)

Networking (VLANs, bonding)

Storage management (ZFS)

Storage (ZFS / distributed)

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline

Master's degree in Computer Science or related discipline

Ph.D. in Computer Science or related discipline

Tools

Proxmox VE

Ansible

Prometheus/Grafana

ELK/OpenSearch

Splunk

Job description

Required qualifications

• Minimum of 12+ years of experience and a Bachelors, 10+ years and a Masters, or 8+ years and a Ph.D. in Computer Science or related discipline. In lieu of a Bachelors degree, 4 additional years of experience is required for a total of 16 years.
• Senior, hands-on experience administering Linux infrastructure in production (RHEL/Ubuntu or similar)
• Production experience operating a virtualization platform at scale (Proxmox VE preferred)
• Automation proficiency using Ansible and scripting in Bash and/or Python
• Strong foundational knowledge in:
  • Cluster/HA concepts (quorum, failover, maintenance/rollback)
  • Virtualization performance troubleshooting (CPU/Memory/IO contention, capacity planning)
  • Networking (VLANs, bonding, segmentation)
  • Storage and data protection (ZFS and/or distributed storage, backup/restore operations)
• At least one active technical certification in: systems engineering, information security, networking, system administration, virtualization, IT systems management, or project management. (e.g., Security+, CISSP/CISM, CASP+, CCNA/CCNP, RHCSA/RHCE, VMware VCP, ITIL, PMP, etc.)
• US Citizenship with an active/current TS/SCI w/ Polygraph

Preferred qualifications

• Deep Proxmox experience related to HA tuning, corosync troubleshooting, multi-cluster scaling, and lifecycle upgrades
• Advanced virtualization capabilities
• Familiarity with DevSecOps/IaC best practices
• Experience with security/compliance operations in controlled environments (STIG/RMF/NIST-aligned practices) and vulnerability remediation workflows
• Experience with observability tooling (Prometheus/Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch, Splunk) and SLO-driven operations

Peraton Labs is seeking a poly cleared Senior Proxmox Cluster Administrator to own day-to-day operations and lifecycle management of a mission-critical Proxmox virtualized environment supporting a complex Multi-OS research infrastructure. You will work closely with Peraton team members, sub-contractors, as well as directly with our Maryland-based customer, in a fast-paced environment.

This role is hands-on and operationally focused, with responsibility for platform reliability, security posture, and automation maturity. Exceptional candidates for this role may also have additional experience in Linux Administration/Engineering and/or Automation/DevSecOps Engineering.

This position requires full-time on-site work at a customer site near College Park, MD.

Key responsibilities may include:

• Administer and sustain Proxmox VE clusters (quorum/corosync, HA policies, node health, upgrades, scaling, capacity forecasting)
• Standardize VM/LXC provisioning
• Lead incident response and complex troubleshooting across compute/network/storage
• Manage Proxmox host networking (Linux bridges, bonding, VLAN trunking, segmented management planes)
• Own backup/restore and DR readiness for virtualization workloads, including periodic restore validation
• Maintain platform documentation (runbooks, SOPs, diagrams, change records) and support audit-ready artifacts as required by the program
• Partner with Peraton internal, sub-contractors, and government support teams to onboard workloads safely and support continuous improvements
• Additional ability to provide support in one or more of the following:
  • Maintain secure and standardized Linux services and baselines supporting the enclave (hardening, platform services, lifecycle/patch coordination, reliability improvements)
  • Develop automation to reduce toil and drift (Ansible/Git-based workflows, provisioning/patch/validation pipelines, compliance evidence automation)