Open Systems Engineer

Company Description

Ashburn Consulting, a Small Business based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, specializes in providing network and network security solutions in complex environments to a select set of government and business clients. The company, an established leader in its field, is composed of an elite team of engineers and business consultants, each of whom is recognized —and highly regarded—within the network and security communities.

Job Description

This labor category provides senior-level hands-on support on Linux and other open system platforms used by the National Gallery.  The key responsibilities of the position include but not limited to:  

• Provide day to day maintenance of servers in a heterogeneous operating systems environment (Microsoft Windows and Linux).  This maintenance includes, but is not limited to, admin support, patching and troubleshooting of the systems environments. Perform system and application upgrades as new major and minor releases become available. 

• Coordinate and/or participate in meetings with supported customers. 

• Research and propose continuous improvements of the managed environments. 

• Maintain accurate system and technical documentation. 

• Ensure compliance with operational, security and organizational processes. 

• Analyze cyber security vulnerability scan reports and remediate vulnerabilities. 

• Develop and analyze highly complex system standards, thresholds, and recommendations to maximize system performance. 

• Primary work is performed onsite, however, in certain situations, the contractor may have to perform work remotely using NGA-approved remote access capabilities. 

• After-hours remote and/or offsite support for emergency break-fix. 

• Implement and maintain PKI Infrastructures, server certificates, Certificate Authority, Secure DNS (DNS SEC) 

• Perform operating system and VMware administration, account management and provisioning activity. 

• Install and setup of Enterprise Database systems i.e. Oracle, MySQL, Postgres, and Amazon RDS 

• Install and maintain the Red Hat Linux Server operating system and various Linux applications and services such as Apache, TomCat, Kerberos, LDAP, MySQL, Satellite Server, Bind, and Postfix.  

• Install and maintain security agents (McAfee/Trellix, Fireeye, Azure Arc, Micrsoft Sentinel) 

• Configure and maintain syslog forwarding and log consolidation. 

• Maintain administrative scripts utilizing Bash, Python, Java and Perl. 

• Configure and maintain scheduled Linux workload using CRON. 

• Perform server and device network setup and troubleshooting in a large enterprise environment. 

• Perform setup, administration, and maintenance of open-source technologies such as Puppet and Ansible. 

• Perform changes as required and respond to outage resolution requests promptly. 

• Provide asset management activities. 

• Manage Amazon Web Services Cloud Services assets.  

Qualifications

Knowledge/skills:  

• The Solutions Engineer must have at least 5 years of hands-on experience to support responsibilities specified in the scope of work section. 

• Certifications in the supported technologies is preferred, however, demonstrable hands-on working knowledge is preferred over the formal certifications. 

• The person must have experience supporting an infrastructure consisting of at least 300 Linux Servers on-premises and Cloud-based (preferably Amazon Web Service) environments. 

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science / engineering is preferred. 

• 3+ years of setup, administration and testing of rational databases is preferred. 

• 2+ years performing vulnerability remediation. 

• 8+ years’ experience working with computer hardware, operating system software and desktop applications with a specific concentration in one or more areas. 

• Experience working with one or more structured programming languages is highly desired. 

• 2+ years’ experience working with design principles and applications is preferred. 

• Experience with implementing and maintaining the PKI Infrastructures, server certificates, Certificate Authority, Secure DNS (DNS SEC) is preferred. 

• ITIL experience or certification preferred.  

• 3+ years’ experience administering Amazon Web Services Cloud is required. 

• 3+ years’ experience in system administration, including installation and configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems: 

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit) 

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) 

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (64-bit) 

• Other Linux Distributions (64-bit) 

• 3+ years’ experience in effectively deploying, managing, and operating the AWS platform. 

• RHCSA or RHCE in version 8 or version 9 is preferred. 

• AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate is preferred. 

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional is preferred. 

• Experience working with monitoring tools SolarWinds, Nagios/Cacti and WhatsUp Gold is a plus. 

• Experience performing backup/recovery operations and Disaster Recovery testing using Veritas NetBackup, N2WS CPM, Cohesity, AWS Backup or equivalent products. 

• Experience maintaining a Digital Asset Management system is a plus. 

• The resource must have clear verbal and written communication and customer-focused skills. The resource must have experience working in a high-velocity multi-tasking operational environment.   

Additional Information

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled. An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status

Ashburn Consulting is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Employer.
In compliance with the American with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA), if you have a disability and would like to request and accommodation in order to apply for a position with Ashburn Consulting, please e-mail hr@ashburnconsulting.com.”