Senior Systems Engineer, IT Operations and Infrastructure

Socket.dev; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 116,000 - 138,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision plans

401(k) retirement plan

Equity grants

Unlimited PTO

Company holiday calendar

Job summary

Firestorm is hiring a Systems Engineer to support critical business operations, infrastructure in the cloud and on‑premise, and secure GCC-High environments. You will deploy, monitor, and harden systems across AWS, Azure, GCP and local data centers, ensuring ITAR compliance and robust backup strategies.

The role is based in San Diego, CA, with a focus on automation, incident response, and scalable operations that keep critical defense manufacturing software reliable even in edge environments.

Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.
• Linux proficiency with OS hardening and troubleshooting.
• Strong scripting skills (Bash, Python, or PowerShell).
• Solid networking knowledge: TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, HTTP/S, SSH, VPNs, firewall rules.
• Experience with virtualization and cloud (VMware, AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Experience with enterprise monitoring, logging, and APM tools (Datadog, Grafana, CloudWatch).
• Familiar with GCC-High environments, AWS-Gov and ITAR/CMMC compliance.

Responsibilities

• Infrastructure provisioning and maintenance across physical servers, VMs, and cloud.
• Implement observability tooling to monitor performance and uptime.
• Lead incident response, RCA, and post-mortems.
• Develop automation and IaC configurations to streamline tasks.
• Manage network services to ensure secure, low-latency connectivity.
• Design and test backup and disaster recovery plans.
• Apply system hardening and manage access controls, audit logs.
• Plan capacity and tune performance for compute/storage/network trends.
• Create and maintain SOPs and runbooks.

Skills

Linux proficiency

Scripting

Networking fundamentals

Cloud & virtualization

Monitoring tools

Security & compliance

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Docker

Kubernetes

VMware ESXi

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

Who We Are

At Firestorm, we are building the future of expeditionary defense manufacturing and autonomous systems. Modern conflict has exposed a fundamental problem: the systems needed most by operators are often too expensive, too slow to produce, and too difficult to sustain at scale. Firestorm exists to change that. We develop mission-adaptable aerial systems and deployable manufacturing infrastructure designed to put capability directly into the hands of the warfighter. From modular unmanned aircraft to xCell - our deployable microfactory - our goal is to make defense systems rapidly deployable, adaptable, and producible at the point of need. We are looking for builders, operators, and problem-solvers who want to work on meaningful technology with real-world impact.

About the Role

Firestorm builds uncrewed aircraft and the manufacturing network that produces them: full-capability plants, deployable xCell edge factories, and forward-deployed sites that stand up production near the point of need. Crucible is the software that runs that network. It runs in the cloud, inside a factory, and air-gapped in classified environments. At the edge, Crucible has to operate reliably on local compute, connect to factory equipment, and keep working when cloud infrastructure and internet connectivity are unavailable. We are hiring a Systems Engineer to support critical business operations, infrastructure in the cloud and on-premise, Microsoft 365 GCC-High, Amazon-Gov and other systems.

What You’ll Do

• Infrastructure Provisioning & Maintenance: Deploy, configure, patch, and manage physical servers, virtual machines, cloud instances (AWS, Azure, GCP), and enterprise storage.
• System Monitoring & Health Checks: Implement and maintain observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch) to track system performance, resource utilization, and uptime.
• Incident Response & Triage: Serve as an escalation point for system outages and critical alerts; lead root-cause analysis (RCA) and document post-mortems to prevent recurrence.
• Automation & Scripting: Write and maintain scripts (Bash, Python, PowerShell) and infrastructure-as-code configurations (Terraform, Ansible) to automate routine operational tasks and deployments.
• Network & Connectivity Management: Monitor core network services (DNS, DHCP, VPNs, routing, and firewalls) to maintain secure, low-latency communication across environments.
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Design, schedule, test, and verify automated backups, data replication, and disaster recovery plans to ensure strict Recovery Point and Recovery Time Objectives (RPO/RTO).
• Security & Compliance: Apply system hardening standards, manage access control (IAM/Active Directory/SSO), audit system logs, and remediate CVE vulnerabilities in coordination with the security team.
• Capacity Planning & Performance Tuning: Analyze compute, storage, and network trends to optimize system performance and forecast hardware or cloud resource scaling needs.
• Documentation & Standard Operating Procedures: Author and update runbooks, system architecture diagrams, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and operational workflows for team use.

Required Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance
• Operating Systems: Deep operational proficiency with Linux distributions (RHEL, Ubuntu, Rocky) and/or Windows Server environments, including OS hardening, kernel tuning, and troubleshooting.
• Scripting & Automation: Strong practical scripting skills in at least one language (Bash, Python, or PowerShell) to automate administrative tasks and repetitive workflows.
• Networking Fundamentals: Solid understanding of core networking protocols and services (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, HTTP/S, SSH, VPNs, and firewall rules).
• Virtualization & Cloud: Hands‑on experience administering virtualized infrastructure (VMware ESXi/vCenter, Hyper‑V, KVM) or public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Monitoring & Tooling: Experience configuring and operating enterprise monitoring, logging, and APM tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Splunk, ELK, or CloudWatch).
• Experience with Microsoft GCC-High environments, AWS-Gov and similar secure environments that have CUI and ITAR data
• Experience with CMMC v2 and NIST 800.171 compliance needs

Preferred Qualifications

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge of configuration management and provisioning tools such as Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, or SaltStack.
• Containerization: Familiarity with Docker and container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, ECS).
• Identity & Security: Experience managing enterprise directory services, IAM, and SSO protocols (Active Directory, Entra ID, Okta, SAML, LDAP).
• Disaster Recovery: Direct experience designing, executing, and auditing multi‑site backup strategies and failover simulations (e.g., Veeam, Zerto, AWS Backup).
• Experience with High Performance Compute (HPE, Supermicro)
• Experiene with Enterprise Storage (NetApp)

Work Environment

• This role is based in San Diego, CA.
• We welcome candidates who are local or open to relocating; relocation assistance is available and may be included in the offer package where appropriate.

Compensation

US Salary Range: $116,000 - $138,000 USD The posted salary range reflects an estimate based on a variety of compensation factors, including but not limited to relevant experience, education, certifications, specialized skills, geographic location, and business needs. Actual compensation may vary, and this range is subject to change as our compensation structure or market conditions evolve.

Benefits & Perks

Our culture fosters collaboration, respect, and trust, empowering passionate people to do their best work. We offer a competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and opportunities for career growth. In addition to an opportunity to take part in an innovative, collaborative and fast‑growing business with a highly motivated and skilled team, we also take pride in taking care of our employees. Here are just a few ways that we show our appreciation:

• We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and visions plans
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan to invest in your long-term retirement goals
• Equity grants for new hires
• Unlimited PTO
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar, including a holiday hiatus in July & December.
• Generous Parental Leave