System Engineer 3 / 2 - (Kubernetes, Linux, Ansible)

Akina•Laurel, MD

About The Position

This role involves operations and system administration for Kubernetes platform infrastructure. Key responsibilities include collaborating with development and product teams to understand operational project requirements and feature specifications, image templating, creating and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, performing regular system scanning and patching for security compliance, and maintaining updates in IC reporting tools. The position also facilitates deployment upgrades across environments, mitigates operational issues, maintains and updates monitoring tools, service and health checks, and determines team support coverage. Additionally, the role involves managing POC support lists and OSOPs, establishing and maintaining test environments, assisting with test coverage analysis, automation of manual test cases, system regression, security, performance, customer-focused, and integration testing. Assisting with defect identification and reporting, scheduling and communicating system outages, collaborating on outage plans, leading documentation efforts for internal and external products, researching technology trends, providing metrics and reporting on service requests, conducting performance benchmarking, monitoring customer support tickets, troubleshooting, and performing customer on-boarding are also key duties. Image templating, creating and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, performing regular system scanning and patching, facilitating deployment upgrades, mitigating operational issues, maintaining monitoring tools, determining support coverage, managing POC support lists, establishing test environments, assisting with test analysis and automation, performing various types of testing, assisting with defect reporting, scheduling outages, collaborating on outage plans, leading documentation efforts, researching trends, providing metrics, conducting benchmarking, monitoring tickets, troubleshooting, and performing customer on-boarding are all part of the role.

Requirements

Skilled in Linux (RHEL) Administration including storage and interface management, hardening and patching
Skilled in Ansible or similar automation technologies for configuration management, maintenance and deployment of operating systems and applications
Virtualization/VMware (AWS, AZURE or similar)
Bash scripting
Kubernetes (K8s)/containerization
Skilled in system scanning, patching and monitoring
Familiar with GitLab or similar
Familiar with Jira or similar
Strong communication skills
Self-starter who can work independently or with team to debug and resolve issues
CWIP Level I required at start; Level II required within 6 months
Twenty (20) years experience as a SE in programs and contracts of similar scope, type and complexity is required (for SE-3)
Fourteen (14) years experience as a SE in programs and contracts of similar scope, type and complexity is required (for SE-2)
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
Five (5) years of additional SE experience may be substituted for a bachelor’s degree

Nice To Haves

CKA Certification or similar
GitOps
CI/CD
Unit-Testing
Python
Ingress/Egress Networking
Writing and maintaining test cases, test procedures, test plans and test reports
Test automation and test automation tools and frameworks

Responsibilities

Operations and system administration for Kubernetes platform infrastructure
Stakeholder collaboration with development and product teams to understand operational project requirements and feature specifications
Image templating
Create and maintain CI/CD pipelines
Perform regular system scanning and patching to maintain enterprise system security compliance and maintain updates in IC reporting tools
Facilitate deployment upgrades across operational, staging and development environments
Mitigation of operational issues affecting end users
Maintain and update monitoring tools, service and health checks
Determine the team's support coverage across applicable supported hours and prioritize monitoring tasks
Manage the POC support lists and OSOPs
Establish and maintain test environments that mimic operational configurations and end to end scenarios
Assist with analysis of test coverage to determine gaps and improvements
Assist with automation of manual test cases and procedures
System regression, security, performance, customer focused and integration testing
Assist with defect identification and reporting with reproducible steps
Schedule and communicate system outages with the team and external customers/partners
Collaborate and discuss outage plans with the Ops Officers
Lead and collaborate with stakeholders for internal and external product documentation, i.e. User Agreements, Customer/Partner User Guides, SOPs, Admin Guide, etc.
Research and study trends with related technologies, tools, etc. and provide recommendations for streamlining processes
Provide metrics and reporting on service requests
Conduct performance benchmarking
Monitor customer support desk tickets, troubleshoot, resolve from simple to complex
Perform customer on-boarding (provision new project resources)