Sr Systems Engineer 3 - (Linux, Ansible, Terraform)

TalentOps; Maryland; On-site; USD 242,000 - 296,000; Full time

Job summary

TalentOps in Annapolis Junction, MD is seeking a Lead Systems Engineer to manage stability, security, and scalability of data transformation workflows and a widely used web-based UI. You will lead a DevOps/SysAdmin team across bare-metal and AWS environments, and collaborate with 25+ software engineers.

The role emphasizes SSP compliance, observability, and mentoring, using Ansible, Terraform, Podman, and testing and deployment strategies in a mature project known for technical stability and

Qualifications

• Twelve (12) years of experience as a SE in programs and contracts of similar scope, type and complexity.
• Bachelor's degree in System Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering Science, Engineering Management, or related discipline from an accredited college or university.
• Four (4) years of additional SE experience may be substituted for a bachelor's degree.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and direct the daily tasks of two system administrators.
• Collaborate with and support the larger team of 25+ software engineers.
• Provide guidance, advice, and assistance for overall system design and setup, in conjunction with software engineering teams.
• Maintain system platforms and health of all servers (EC2, MASH, bare metal), production systems, development environments.
• Oversee system maintenance, security, and SSP accreditations.
• Observability of the system, e.g. automation, monitoring, alerting, backup, and disaster recovery strategies for all development, staging, and production environments.
• Ensure system documentation is up to date and conduct regular technical reviews and post-mortems to drive continuous improvement in team operations.

Skills

Ansible

Terraform

Podman

Bash

Python

AWS

Kubernetes

Grafana

Prometheus

SSP compliance

Elasticsearch

MongoDB

Redis

Graph databases

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

EC2

S3

VPCs

IAM

Packer

Job description

• Annapolis Junction, MD
• Information Technology

Clearance: TS/SCI - Polygraph required
Position ID: 20-19-001-SE3
Location: Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Description:

Join a high-impact, mission-driven team as Lead Systems Engineer, where you will help manage the stability, security, and scalability of systems powering complex data transformation workflows and a widely used web-based user interface. Embedded within a broader engineering organization of 25+ developers, you will lead a small, agile DevOps/SysAdmin team responsible for end-to-end infrastructure, from bare-metal and AWS environments to Kubernetes deployments. In this role, you will collaborate across software teams to help architect robust systems, support development processes, maintain metrics and observability to track uptime and performance of systems, and mentor other team members in modern automation tools using Ansible, Terraform, and Podman, as well as testing and deployment strategies. This mature project is known for its technical stability, team cohesion, and deep integration into mission-critical systems, offering you the opportunity to make meaningful contributions in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

• Lead, mentor, and direct the daily tasks of two system administrators.
• Collaborate with and support the larger team of 25+ software engineers.
• Provide guidance, advice, and assistance for overall system design and setup, in conjunction with software engineering teams.
• Maintain system platforms and health of all servers (EC2, MASH, bare metal), production systems, development environments.
• Oversee system maintenance, security, and SSP accreditations.
• Observability of the system, e.g. automation, monitoring, alerting, backup, and disaster recovery strategies for all development, staging, and production environments.
• Ensure system documentation is up to date and conduct regular technical reviews and post-mortems to drive continuous improvement in team operations.

Position Required Skills:

• Proficient in system automation and scripting tools such as Ansible (including Semaphore), Terraform, Packer, Bash, and Python.
• Knowledge of SSP compliance and processes, including STE/STN.
• Experience with containerization such as Podman and Kubernetes.
• Amazon AWS experience (setting up EC2 instances, S3 buckets, VPCs, IAM).
• Metrics and observability with Kibana, Grafana, and Prometheus.
• Familiarity with database administration with databases such as Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Redis, or graph databases (e.g. DGraph).

Nice to Haves

• Elastic stack experience (logstash, filebeat, etc.).
• Experience with other AWS tools such as EKS, ECS, Lambdas, and Secrets Manager.
• CI/CD in GitLab.
• CNO experience.
• Experience facilitating low-to-high development.

SE3 Qualifications:

Twelve (12) years of experience as a SE in programs and contracts of similar scope, type and complexity is required. Demonstrated experience in planning and leading Systems Engineering efforts is required. Bachelor's degree in System Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering Science, Engineering Management, or related discipline from an accredited college or university is required. Four (4) years of additional SE experience may be substituted for a bachelor's degree.

Salary Range:

$242k-$296k (Annually)

The range displayed above is a likely salary range for this position. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possible contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.