Lead Systems Engineer

Bitwise Creative LLC

$266K — $313K *
Aerospace & Defense
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 12 years of experience in systems engineering and administration, OR a B.S. in a technical discipline with 8 years of experience.
  • Strong Linux system administration experience (RHEL9).
  • Proficiency in automation and scripting tools including Ansible, Terraform, Packer, Bash, and Python.
  • Knowledge of SSP compliance and processes, including STE/STN.
  • Experience with containerization technologies such as Podman and Kubernetes.
  • Hands-on experience with AWS, specifically EC2, S3, VPCs, and IAM.
  • Familiarity with observability tools like Kibana, Grafana, and Prometheus.

Responsibilities

  • Lead, mentor, and manage a team of two system administrators.
  • Collaborate with software engineers to support system design and implementation.
  • Maintain health and performance of all server environments (EC2, MASH, bare metal).
  • Oversee system security and maintenance compliance efforts.
  • Develop observability strategies, including monitoring and disaster recovery.
  • Maintain CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation processes in GitLab.
  • Update system documentation and facilitate regular technical reviews.

Benefits

  • Flexible paid time off (PTO) options ranging from 3 to 5 weeks.
  • All 11 federal holidays paid.
  • Up to 2 paid snow days.
  • Generous 401(k) matching contribution policy, up to 24%.
  • 100% employer-paid medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurances.
  • $5,250 annual education assistance for further training and certifications.
  • Spot bonuses for recognized achievements and certifications.
Full Job Description
Lead Systems Engineer

An active TS//SCI clearance with polygraph is required for this role

About this Role

You will lead a small, agile DevOps/SysAdmin team embedded within a larger engineering organization of 25+ developers, managing the stability, security, and scalability of systems that power complex data transformation workflows and a widely used web-based user interface. This is your opportunity to architect and maintain robust infrastructure spanning bare-metal and AWS environments to Kubernetes deployments, while collaborating with software engineering teams on system design and implementation.

As Lead Systems Engineer, you will:
  • Lead, mentor, and direct the daily tasks of two system administrators
  • Collaborate with and support a 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, and development environments
  • Oversee system maintenance, security, and SSP accreditations
  • Develop and implement observability strategies including automation, monitoring, alerting, backup, and disaster recovery procedures for all development, staging, and production environments
  • Maintain deployment automation processes and CI/CD pipelines in GitLab
  • Ensure system documentation is up to date and conduct regular technical reviews and post-mortems to drive continuous improvement in team operations
  • Maintain base Linux kickstart images (RHEL9)

This is a mature project 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.

Requirements
  • 12 years of experience in systems engineering and administration, OR a B.S. in a technical discipline with 8 years of experience
  • Strong Linux system administration experience (RHEL9)
  • Proficiency in system automation and scripting tools including Ansible (including Semaphore), Terraform, Packer, Bash, and Python
  • Knowledge of SSP compliance and processes, including STE/STN
  • Experience with containerization technologies such as Podman and Kubernetes
  • Amazon AWS experience including EC2 instance setup, S3 buckets, VPCs, and IAM
  • Proficiency with metrics and observability platforms such as Kibana, Grafana, and Prometheus
  • Familiarity with database administration across databases such as Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Redis, or graph databases (e.g., DGraph)

Preferred Skills
  • NiFi dataflow experience
  • Elastic stack experience (logstash, filebeat, etc.)
  • Graph database experience
  • Experience with additional AWS tools such as EKS, ECS, Lambdas, and Secrets Manager
  • CI/CD pipeline experience in GitLab
  • CNO experience
  • Experience facilitating low-to-high development
  • Cisco networking experience

Benefits at Bitwise
  • Top salaries because we're top performers
  • Pick your PTO - Everyone values time and money differently, so we give you the flexibility to choose between 3 and 5 weeks of PTO with a corresponding adjustment to your pay. Your choice, your balance.
  • All 11 federal holidays, paid!
  • Up to 2 snow days, paid!
  • We'll quadruple (4x!) the first 6% you contribute to your 401(k), giving you up to a 24% company match. Contributing less than 6%? Unclaimed matches come right back to you as extra income, giving you a guaranteed 24% that goes to your retirement, to your paycheck, or both. C'mon now!
  • 100% employer-paid medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurances. That's a lot. Already covered on health insurance? No problem - we'll trade you this benefit for a boost to your salary instead.
  • $5,250 annual education assistance for training, certifications, tuition, and even student loan repayments.
  • Spot bonuses for obtained certifications, customer recognition, and just about anything else that makes us go "Hot damn!". We hope to say that many times about you.

Salary Range

$266,500 - $313,500

This range includes our flex income and depends upon your annual work hours.

Salary is determined on an individual basis following the interview process and considering various factors such as years of experience, skills, education, and certifications.

What to Expect After Applying

You'll get an email from us right away to acknowledge your application. After that, we'll:
  • Send over additional company materials for you to review
  • Schedule a video call to talk about you, our company, and your place in it
  • Craft a delightful offer package for you and record a video walkthrough
  • Work closely with you through onboarding. We'll keep it joyful and easy.

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