Sr. AWS Cloud - Cyber Range Engineer

ECS Corporate Services; Arlington (VA); Hybrid; USD 165,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

ECS Corporate Services is seeking a Senior AWS Cloud / Cyber Range Engineer in Arlington, VA. The role focuses on operating and securing a cloud-hosted cybersecurity training environment, with duties spanning cloud infrastructure, AMI management, and automation in a federal setup.

The engineer will join a team supporting the CVLE used for interactive labs and training, with responsibilities evolving to day-to-day engineering, availability, and continuous improvement while adhering to federal

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, IT, Cybersecurity, or Engineering.
• Approximately 8+ years of relevant infrastructure, cloud, systems, or platform experience.
• 4+ years hands-on AWS engineering or operations experience.
• Demonstrated experience operating production AWS environments.
• Strong experience with AWS services (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, CloudWatch, EBS, security groups, load balancing).
• Experience creating, maintaining, and deploying AMIs.
• Experience with Windows and Linux server administration.
• Experience with scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, Bash, Ansible).
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Familiarity with federal cybersecurity requirements and operating in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize an AWS-hosted cybersecurity training and virtual lab environment.
• Assume primary engineering responsibility for the platform after transition period.
• Maintain availability and reliability of infrastructure for courses, instructors, admins, and students.
• Manage AWS infrastructure: compute, networking, storage, IAM, monitoring, and security services.
• Develop, test, and deploy AMIs and other lab components.
• Support development of new cybersecurity labs and production promotion of lab images.
• Manage provisioning and deprovisioning of VMs and student labs.
• Develop automation to reduce manual configuration and provisioning tasks.
• Apply Infrastructure as Code and configuration-management practices where appropriate.
• Monitor platform health, performance, security, and availability; troubleshoot issues.
• Maintain cybersecurity posture and support ATO requirements.
• Identify and remediate vulnerabilities and security findings; support POA&M remediation.
• Coordinate with developers, vendors, security personnel, and government stakeholders.
• Document architecture, procedures, configurations, dependencies, and decisions.

Skills

AWS

Cloud infrastructure

Automation

Python

PowerShell

Bash

Ansible

Terraform

CloudFormation

Linux administration

Windows administration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT / Cybersecurity / Engineering

Tools

Terraform

AWS CloudFormation

Ansible

PowerShell

Python

Job description

ECS is seeking a Sr. AWS Cloud - Cyber Range Engineer to join our team in Arlington, VA (Hybrid). ECS is seeking talented professionals to join our growing team supporting the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Technical Engineering and Support Services (TESS) program. TESS is CISA's integrated, capability-driven mission ecosystem designed to scale across mission and delivery spaces within the DHS/CISA/Cybersecurity Division. This is a hybrid position.

Position Overview We are seeking a Senior AWS Cloud / Cyber Range Engineer to support the operation, maintenance, security, and modernization of a federal cybersecurity training environment. This role will provide hands-on engineering support for a cloud-hosted Cybersecurity Virtual Learning Environment (CVLE) used to deliver interactive cybersecurity labs and training. The engineer will initially work alongside the existing support team to learn the environment, architecture, security boundary, operational processes, and lab ecosystem. Following the transition period, the engineer will assume primary responsibility for the day-to-day engineering, operation, availability, security, and continuous improvement of the environment. This position requires a strong AWS infrastructure engineer who is equally comfortable with cloud operations, automation, virtualization, vulnerability remediation, and federal cybersecurity requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize an AWS-hosted cybersecurity training and virtual lab environment.
• Assume primary engineering responsibility for the platform following completion of the transition and knowledge-transfer period.
• Maintain availability and reliability of infrastructure supporting cybersecurity training courses, instructors, administrators, and students.
• Manage AWS infrastructure, including compute, networking, storage, identity and access management, monitoring, and security services.
• Develop, maintain, test, and deploy Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) and other virtual lab components.
• Support development of new cybersecurity lab environments and promote approved lab images from development into production.
• Manage provisioning and deprovisioning of virtual machines and student lab environments.
• Develop automation to reduce manual configuration, environment setup, reset, provisioning, and administrative activities.
• Implement Infrastructure as Code and configuration-management practices where appropriate.
• Monitor platform health, capacity, performance, security, and availability and troubleshoot infrastructure or application-support issues.
• Maintain the cybersecurity posture of the environment and support continued Authority to Operate (ATO) requirements.
• Identify and remediate Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs), critical/high vulnerabilities, security findings, and other government security requirements.
• Support POA&M remediation and provide technical evidence or documentation necessary to demonstrate implementation of security controls.
• Coordinate with cybersecurity training developers, course owners, vendors, security personnel, and government stakeholders.
• Document platform architecture, operational procedures, configurations, dependencies, troubleshooting procedures, and engineering decisions.
• Identify opportunities to improve platform scalability, resilience, automation, cost efficiency, maintainability, and security.

Salary Range: $165,000 - $190,000

General Description of Benefits

• US citizenship with ability to obtain and maintain Public Trust Suitability.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Approximately 8+ years of relevant infrastructure, cloud, systems, or platform engineering experience.
• At least 4+ years of hands-on AWS engineering or operations experience.
• Demonstrated experience operating production AWS environments.
• Strong experience with AWS services such as EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, CloudWatch, EBS, security groups, load balancing, and related cloud infrastructure services.
• Experience creating, maintaining, hardening, and deploying Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).
• Experience with Windows and Linux server administration.
• Experience supporting virtual machines, virtualized environments, or dynamically provisioned infrastructure.
• Experience with scripting and automation using tools such as Python, PowerShell, Bash, or Ansible.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code technologies such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated experience troubleshooting complex cloud infrastructure and application-hosting issues.
• Working knowledge of cloud security, vulnerability management, patching, logging, monitoring, and configuration management.
• Experience working within federal cybersecurity requirements or other highly regulated environments.
• Ability to independently manage a technical environment while collaborating effectively with engineering, security, training, and government stakeholders.