Salary StatementEstimated Starting Salary Range: USD $132,250.00/Yr. - USD $220,400.00/Yr. Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.
DescriptionThe Systems Automation Engineer architects, secures, and sustains a fully air-gapped, multi-account Kubernetes platform in AWS GovCloud, built on RHEL, RKE2, and self-managed GitLab. This role is built on an automation-first mindset infrastructure-as-code, one-shot repeatable deployments, CI/CD pipelines, and containerization to deliver highly scalable, resilient, and secure solutions in a disconnected environment. The engineer eliminates manual processes in favor of bundled, offline-reproducible deployments, embeds DevSecOps and zero-trust identity across the full system lifecycle, and operates the platform to meet NIST, RMF, STIG, and IL5/IL6/TS-SCI requirements.
Platform & Infrastructure Engineering
- Designing, deploying, and sustaining RHEL 8/9/10 environments and RKE2 Kubernetes clusters across multiple AWS accounts and VPCs
- Operating the cluster control plane and per-environment agent pools (dev/test/staging/prod) with node labeling, taints, and workload isolation
- Performing hardening, patching, and performance tuning in a disconnected environment using bundled RPM delivery (no upstream repos), SELinux, and host firewalls
- Administering platform-native core services CoreDNS, AWS Route 53, ingress/load balancing, and certificate lifecycle (cert-manager / TLS secrets)
- Designing HA/DR and resilience multi-node control planes, automated backup/restore of stateful workloads (PVCs, GitLab, databases), and failover across availability zones
Cloud & Network Engineering
- Architecting and managing AWS GovCloud environments (EC2, S3, EBS, VPC, IAM, Route 53) across multiple accounts with cross-account roles, key pairs, and AMI strategy
- Designing secure, scalable multi-VPC network architectures Transit Gateway meshes, subnets, routing, and CIDR-based security-group rules (cross-VPC SG references are not available in GovCloud)
- Implementing all infrastructure as code with Terraform (reusable per-VPC modules, cross-account providers, programmatically rendered variables)
- Standing up and operating an in-environment OCI/container registry and bootstrap services for offline image distribution
- Optimizing cloud cost, performance, and availability through right-sizing, repeatable destroy/redeploy, and monitoring
DevSecOps & GitLab Platform
- Building and sustaining CI/CD pipelines on self-managed GitLab EE, including version-ladder upgrades, the container registry, and auto-registered Kubernetes runners
- Integrating DevSecOps container/image CVE scanning (e.g., Trivy, Grype, Clair), secrets management, and policy/gating in pipelines
- Operating container build and delivery tooling (Docker/podman, kaniko, Helm) with helm-template-derived, air-gap-reproducible image bundles
- Implementing GitOps delivery with ArgoCD (pull-based, per-app Applications, environment promotion and prod gating)
Automation & Air-Gap Delivery
- Developing automation that eliminates manual intervention single-command, phase-driven deployments validated end-to-end before delivery
- Engineering self-contained, offline deployment bundles (RPMs, OCI images, Helm charts, binaries) for reproducible installs in disconnected networks
- Writing and maintaining automation in Ansible, Python, and Bash; automating provisioning, configuration management, and patching
- Maintaining idempotent, resumable deploy/upgrade/teardown workflows
Identity, Security & Compliance
- Implementing zero-trust identity and SSO with Keycloak (OIDC/SAML), federating platform services (GitLab, ArgoCD, monitoring, admin UIs) and supporting CAC/PIV X.509 smart-card authentication
- Implementing system hardening in accordance with DISA STIGs and NIST baselines as automated, repeatable controls
- Supporting RMF/ATO processes authoring control evidence, security documentation, POA&M items, and continuous-monitoring inputs
- Implementing centralized logging, monitoring, and alerting (Elastic/SIEM, host/audit telemetry, and AWS-native sources where applicable)
- Ensuring IL5/IL6/TS-SCI compliance through enforced security controls, secrets-at-rest protection, and system hardening
Observability, Operations & Support
- Standing up and operating monitoring/observability (Prometheus, Grafana, node/cluster metrics) and vulnerability scanning (ACAS Tenable.sc/Nessus)
- Monitoring system performance, availability, and capacity to ensure reliability and scalability
- Troubleshooting complex, cross-component issues across the platform (networking, DNS, container runtime, registry, identity) to restore operations
- Providing Tier III support and leading root-cause analysis to resolve issues and prevent recurrence
- Maintaining architecture documentation, deployment guides, and standard operating procedures/runbooks
#LI-LH1
FILLING THIS POSITION IS CONTINGENT UPON FUNDING
Requirements
- Five plus years of experience in systems/infrastructure engineering with strong Linux (RHEL 8/9/10) depth
- Five plus years of experience in DevSecOps, automation, and AWS cloud environments
- Strong hands-on experience with AWS core services and multi-account/VPC networking
- Production experience operating Kubernetes (RKE2 preferred) RBAC, ingress, Helm, troubleshooting
- Experience with scripting/automation in Ansible, Python, and Bash
- Hands-on experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform)
- Experience building and sustaining CI/CD pipelines (GitLab)
- Working knowledge of networking fundamentals (routing, host firewalls, load balancers, DNS)
- Experience applying DISA STIG / NIST hardening and supporting RMF/ATO in DoD or regulated environments
Desired Skills
- Experience with Kubernetes (RKE2, EKS, OpenShift, NKP, Rancher Federal, or similar)
- Knowledge of zero-trust architecture and modern identity solutions
- Experience with HashiCorp Vault, ArgoCD, or GitOps workflows, and service mesh technologies
- Familiarity with monitoring tools (Prometheus, Grafana)
- Experience in DoD or regulated environments (RMF, IL5/IL6/TS-SCI)
Clearance Information
SRC IS A CONTRACTOR FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, THIS POSITION WILL REQUIRE U.S. CITIZENSHIP AS WELL AS, A U.S. GOVERNMENT SECURITY CLEARANCE AT THE SECRET LEVEL WITH TOP SECRET / SCI ELIGIBILITY
Travel Requirements
- Locally within US Space Command's Colorado Springs AOR. Peterson SFB, Schriever SFB and other locations in Colorado Springs (CO)
- Up to two weeks per month to US Space Command facilities at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville (AL)