Sr. Systems Engineer II (6891)

MetroStar•Washington, DC

11d•$147,000 - $170,000•Onsite

About The Position

As a Sr. Systems Engineer II, you’ll design, secure, automate, and sustain mission-critical infrastructure and container platforms supporting a highly visible federal customer. You’ll leverage systems engineering, Kubernetes, containerization, DevSecOps, and infrastructure automation experience to improve the reliability, observability, and maintainability of enterprise systems operating in a demanding 24x7 environment. This position is designated as essential personnel supporting continuity of operations and may require work during government shutdowns, emergencies, or other critical situations. The role is primarily onsite in the Washington, D.C. area and may involve occasional on-call or nonstandard hours. The salary range is $147,000–$170,000. Additional compensation may include performance-based bonuses, company-paid training and/or certifications, referral bonuses, and other incentives based on individual and company performance. The final salary offered depends on qualifications, skills, relevant experience, role responsibilities, organizational needs, and internal equity.

Requirements

Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility.
At least 6 years of experience in systems, platform, DevOps, infrastructure engineering, or systems administration.
At least 3 years of hands-on Kubernetes or container experience.
Strong experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, and Rancher or OpenShift.
Experience supporting on-premises, mission-critical infrastructure.
Hands-on VMware and Linux administration experience.
Infrastructure automation or IaC experience with Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, or similar tools.
Experience building or supporting CI/CD pipelines in a DevSecOps environment.
Strong production troubleshooting across compute, storage, networking, operating system, and application layers.
Experience with system hardening, vulnerability remediation, security baselines, and secure configurations.
Ability to document technical environments and communicate technical risks and recommendations.
Ability to work primarily onsite in the Washington, D.C. area and support occasional on-call or nonstandard hours.

Responsibilities

Assess and improve the health, performance, security, and reliability of infrastructure and Kubernetes platforms.
Build, configure, and maintain Kubernetes, Rancher, Helm, Docker, VMware, and Linux environments.
Automate infrastructure provisioning, configuration, and deployments using infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD practices.
Troubleshoot complex issues across containers, compute, storage, networking, and application-hosting environments.
Improve monitoring, logging, alerting, dashboards, and overall platform observability.
Identify technical risks, recurring failures, and technical debt, and develop remediation plans.
Apply security hardening, vulnerability remediation, least privilege, and DevSecOps best practices.
Test, validate, and implement production changes through approved change-management processes.
Collaborate across engineering, cybersecurity, networking, storage, database, and application teams.
Maintain architecture diagrams, runbooks, standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, and recovery documentation.
Support knowledge transfer, platform improvements, and occasional after-hours or on-call activities.
Support continuity of operations as essential personnel, potentially working during government shutdowns, emergencies, or other critical situations.