Sr. Principal Mission Engineer

Clarityinnovates; Columbia (MD); On-site; USD 100,000 - 330,000; Full time

Job summary

Clarity Innovations is seeking a Senior Principal Mission Engineer to lead on-site operations for a unified, multi-tenant control plane spanning AWS GovCloud/Azure Government and on-prem environments. You will deploy, manage, and optimize secure Kubernetes clusters, API gateways, and cross-domain integrations within a classified cloud enclave.

You will bridge remote engineering pipelines with isolated infrastructure, perform advanced troubleshooting, and train site mission users.

Qualifications

• Active Top Secret / SCI clearance.
• 5+ years systems engineering experience, with 2–3 years in architecture/operations within government or classified cloud regions.
• Solid understanding of Kubernetes architecture, cluster operations, and debugging cloud-native stacks.
• Practical knowledge of cloud routing, secure API gateways, security groups, IAM roles/policies, and cross-domain solution paths.
• Strong verbal and written communication, with experience defending technical designs to government representatives and training end-users.

Responsibilities

• Classified Cloud Management: Manage and monitor cloud-native services, compute, networks, and identity policies in the secure enclave.
• Kubernetes & Workload Integration: Troubleshoot and maintain localized Kubernetes clusters with proper ingress, Cilium fabric, and registries.
• Updates & Software Delivery: Coordinate updates in air-gapped or restricted-connectivity cloud environments with minimal disruption.
• Troubleshooting & Cloud Diagnostics: Isolate and resolve cloud connectivity issues, routing failures, IAM deadlocks, and API rate limits.
• Customer Engagement & Technical Liaison: Serve as on-site cloud SME, guiding configurations and managing expectations.
• Mission Training & Onboarding: Provide hands-on training and documentation for site developers onboarding workloads.

Skills

5+ years systems engineering

Gov/classified cloud experience

Customer-facing skills

Strong communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in a technical field

Tools

Kubernetes

Cilium

Ingress gateways

IAM/Security

Job description

Clarity Innovations is a trusted national security partner, dedicated to safeguarding our nation’s interests and delivering innovative solutions that empower the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD) to transform data into actionable intelligence, ensuring mission success in an evolving world.

Our mission-first software and data engineering platform modernizes data operations, utilizing advanced workflows, CI/CD, and secure DevSecOps practices. We focus on challenges in Information Warfare, Cyber Operations, Operational Security, and Data Structuring, enabling end-to-end solutions that drive operational impact.

We are committed to delivering cutting-edge tools and capabilities that address the most complex national security challenges, empowering our partners to stay ahead of emerging threats and ensuring the success of their critical missions. At Clarity, we are people-focused and set on being a destination employer for top talent, offering an environment where innovation thrives, careers grow, and individuals are valued. Join us as we continue to lead innovation and tackle the most pressing challenges in national security.

Senior Principal Mission Engineer (K8s & Cloud)

Position Overview

The position is for an on-site, cleared Senior Principal Mission Engineer as part of a team of software and platform engineers building a unified, multi-tenant control plane that abstracts away infrastructure differences across AWS, Azure, and on-premises environments. The platform allows application teams to provision secure, isolated Kubernetes clusters and workloads dynamically. The control plane runs Crossplane and Cluster API (CAPI).

As the primary on-site engineer, you will be dedicated to deploying, managing, updating and optimizing our platform’s environments within a classified cloud (e.g., AWS Top Secret Region). In this role, you will ensure the seamless operation of our cloud capabilities, Kubernetes clusters, and API gateway architectures. You will handle localized cloud infrastructure troubleshooting, deploy secure software updates, and provide direct technical consultation and training to the site’s mission users. You will bridge the gap between our remote engineering pipeline and the isolated, classified cloud infrastructure, handling everything from low-level troubleshooting to direct customer engagement and user training.

The ideal candidate is highly independent, capable of driving projects from inception to completion with minimal supervision.

Key Responsibilities

• Classified Cloud Management: Manage and monitor the platform’s cloud-native services, compute instances, virtual networks (VPCs/VNets), and identity policies inside the secure cloud enclave.
• Kubernetes & Workload Integration: Troubleshoot and maintain localized Kubernetes clusters (managed or CAPI-provisioned), ensuring proper integration with ingress API gateways, Cilium network fabrics, and local container registries.
• Updates & Software Delivery: Coordinate and execute complex software and platform updates within air-gapped or restricted-connectivity cloud environments, ensuring minimal disruption to active mission sets.
• Troubleshooting & Cloud Diagnostics: Rapidly isolate and resolve cloud-specific connectivity issues, routing failures, IAM permission deadlocks, and API rate-limiting blocks.
• Customer Engagement & Technical Liaison: Serve as the on-site cloud subject matter expert, guiding the customer through complex environment configurations and managing technical expectations.
• Mission Training & Onboarding: Provide hands-on training, workshops, and documentation to site application developers onboarding their workloads onto the cloud platform.

Qualifications

• Clearance: Active Top Secret / SCI
• Experience: 5+ years of systems engineering experience, with at least 2-3 years specifically focused on architecture and operations within government or classified cloud regions (AWS GovCloud/Secret/Top Secret or Azure Government/Secret).
• Container Orchestration: Solid understanding of Kubernetes architecture, cluster operations, and debugging cloud-native application stacks.
• Cloud Networking & Security: Practical knowledge of cloud routing, secure API gateways, security groups, IAM roles/policies, and cross-domain solution paths.
• Customer-Facing Skills: Strong verbal and written communication skills, with experience defending technical designs to government representatives and training technical end-users.

Preferred Qualifications

• Live-Production Incident Response: Hands-on experience managing incident response lifecycles and resolving critical control-plane or etcd failures within live, high-scale production systems.
• Telemetry-Driven Debugging: Advanced capability in utilizing telemetry, API server audit logs, distributed tracing, and metrics to perform root-cause analysis and resolve complex issues in live production environments.

Salary Range: $100,000 - $330,000

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.