OpenShift Platform Engineer

Saalex•Ridgecrest, CA

8h•$135,000 - $155,000•Onsite

About The Position

Saalex is seeking an OpenShift Platform Engineer to lead the architecture, deployment, automation, and sustainment of Red Hat OpenShift platforms supporting classified Department of Defense environments. The role serves as the technical lead for building and maintaining scalable OpenShift infrastructure, virtualization capabilities, and automation frameworks for mission-critical systems. The engineer designs, implements, and optimizes enterprise OpenShift environments and develops automated operational capabilities to simplify administration, improve security, and support long-term platform sustainability. The position is onsite in China Lake, California, and is full-time, exempt. The salary range is $135,000–$155,000 annually. An active TS/SCI security clearance is required; clearance eligibility requirements include U.S. citizenship and a security investigation.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
At least 7 years of experience supporting enterprise Linux, Kubernetes, OpenShift, platform engineering, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, or related technical environments.
Hands-on experience deploying, administering, and maintaining Red Hat OpenShift environments.
Strong Kubernetes platform administration experience.
Strong Linux systems administration experience, preferably with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Experience developing and maintaining Ansible playbooks and automation workflows.
Experience with Ansible Automation Platform or similar enterprise automation tools.
Experience with OpenShift Virtualization, KubeVirt, VMware, or comparable virtualization technologies.
Experience developing Infrastructure-as-Code and automated provisioning solutions.
Experience creating technical documentation, operational procedures, and administration guides.
Experience supporting secure, classified, government, or highly regulated computing environments.
Active TS/SCI security clearance required; clearance requirements include U.S. citizenship and a security investigation.

Nice To Haves

Experience administering disconnected, air-gapped, or restricted OpenShift environments.
Experience with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (ACM), OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF), or related OpenShift ecosystem technologies.
Experience with GitLab, GitOps, ArgoCD, Terraform, or other modern automation and deployment frameworks.
Experience supporting containerized application deployments and DevSecOps initiatives.
Experience integrating GPU or accelerated-computing resources within Kubernetes or OpenShift environments.
Experience supporting High Performance Computing (HPC) environments.
Experience supporting Department of Defense research, engineering, testing, or weapons-development organizations.
Experience working within NAVAIR, DoD, or other classified government environments.

Responsibilities

Architect, deploy, administer, and optimize Red Hat OpenShift platforms supporting classified Department of Defense environments.
Design and implement highly available OpenShift cluster architectures, including lifecycle management, upgrades, patching, and sustainment.
Lead deployment and administration of OpenShift Virtualization and virtual machine workloads hosted within OpenShift.
Develop and maintain Ansible Automation Platform workflows, Ansible playbooks, and Infrastructure-as-Code solutions for platform provisioning and administration.
Design automation to streamline routine operational activities and reduce administrative overhead.
Implement and maintain OpenShift networking, storage, authentication, RBAC, and security controls.
Support Kubernetes-based application hosting and container orchestration initiatives.
Create technical documentation, runbooks, system administration guides, and operational procedures.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex platform, virtualization, automation, and infrastructure issues.
Collaborate with cybersecurity, infrastructure, operations, and engineering teams to support secure platform operations.
Support platform modernization and continuous improvement initiatives.
Ensure solutions meet performance, scalability, maintainability, compliance, and security requirements.
Provide technical recommendations, architecture guidance, and implementation support for platform engineering initiatives.
Perform other duties as assigned.