Senior Systems Engineer & Lab Manager, Mission-Critical

Socket.dev; Maryland; On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Independent Software seeks a System Engineer Level 5 (Lab Manager) to lead a two-person contractor team responsible for oversight of machine rooms, labs, and related spaces. You will coordinate with System Administrators, Network Engineers, customers, Facilities, vendors, and leadership to ensure secure, compliant operations.

You will monitor power, space, and cooling; manage access; support rack/cabling; troubleshoot hardware and fiber; and maintain machine room drawings.

Qualifications

• Experience supporting agency machine rooms or mission-critical environments.
• Experience racking and cabling systems for deployments.
• Hands-on hardware experience with HP, Dell, Cisco, Arista, or Juniper.
• Experience supporting and troubleshooting fiber connectivity.
• Experience creating and updating machine room drawings using Visio or similar tools.
• Strong communication, coordination, and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead daily operations and support of mission-critical machine rooms, labs, and spaces.
• Maintain spaces and access lists per agency requirements.
• Monitor power, space, and cooling needs; coordinate infrastructure upgrades with Facilities.
• Support installation and decommissioning of racks, servers, network devices, and communications equipment.
• Work JIRA tickets for hardware replacements and coordinate vendor warranty support.
• Monitor machine room conditions and perform routine walkthroughs to identify issues.
• Rack, cable, install, and troubleshoot systems supporting operational deployments.
• Maintain machine room drawings using Visio or similar tools.
• Coordinate with customers, System Administrators, Network Engineers, Facilities personnel, leadership, and vendors.

Skills

Agency machine rooms experience

Racking & cabling for deployments

Hardware experience (HP, Dell, Cisco,

Arista or Juniper hardware

Fiber connectivity troubleshooting

Machine room drawings (Visio)

Strong communication & coordination

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering field +15 years systems engineering

High School Diploma / GED +19 years experience

Master's degree in Engineering +13 years

PhD in Engineering +11 years

Tools

Visio

Job description

Independent Software seeks a System Engineer Level 5 (Lab Manager) to lead a two-person contractor team responsible for oversight of machine rooms, labs, and related spaces. You will coordinate with System Administrators, Network Engineers, customers, Facilities, vendors, and leadership to ensure secure, compliant operations.

You will monitor power, space, and cooling; manage access; support rack/cabling; troubleshoot hardware and fiber; and maintain machine room drawings.