Linux OS Engineer

Linux OS Engineer

Responsibilities & Qualifications:

Responsibilities:

The Linux OS Engineer is expected to be able to accomplish the following:

• Platform Engineering & Operations
  • Engineer, deploy, and administer RHEL/CentOS/Rocky and Ubuntu servers (physical and virtual) across dev/test/prod.
  • Implement standard OS baselines, golden images, and immutable patterns (e.g., image pipelines, templates, kickstart/preseed, cloud-init).
  • Manage patching and kernel updates with maintenance windows and rollback plans; validate health post-change.
• Configuration Management & Automation
  • Build and maintain automation using Ansible, Bash, and Python to enforce configuration drift control and speed delivery.
  • Integrate configuration policies with CI/CD workflows and version control; write idempotent playbooks/roles.
• Security & Compliance
  • Apply and maintain DoD STIG/hardening controls; remediate findings from vulnerability scans; maintain audit artifacts.
  • Implement/validate FIPS, SELinux, disk encryption, log forwarding, and secure remote access; support ATO evidence.
• Reliability, Monitoring & Performance
  • Design and operate logging/metrics/alerting (e.g., journald/rsyslog, auditd, Prometheus/Grafana/ELK) with actionable SLOs.
  • Troubleshoot OS, storage, and network performance (I/O, CPU, memory, TCP/IP) using system profiling tools.
• High Availability & Continuity
  • Support clustering and HA patterns (Pacemaker/Corosync, systemd units, load balancers); document and test DR/backup restore.
• Collaboration & Support
  • Provide Tier 3 escalation; create runbooks/SOPs; participate in on-call rotations as needed.
  • Partner closely with cybersecurity, network, storage, virtualization, and application owners to deliver end-to-end outcomes.

Required Qualifications:

• Active TS/SCI + CI Poly clearance
• 5-7 years of professional experience administering Linux in enterprise or government environments (or equivalent combination of education/experience suitable for mid level).
• One of the following DoD 8570/CS-NET-451 certifications:
  • Security+ (CE)
  • RHCSA/RHCE
  • CKA
  • ITIL® Foundation
• Strong proficiency with RHEL-family and Debian/Ubuntu administration, system services, and package managers (dnf/yum/apt).
• Hands-on with Ansible and scripting (Bash, Python) for automation and compliance.
• Demonstrated experience applying STIG/hardening and working within secure change-controlled environments.
• Solid troubleshooting across compute, network, and storage layers; familiarity with virtualization (VMware/KVM) and ticketing/ITSM workflows.
• Ability to create and maintain SOPs, runbooks, and architecture diagrams supporting audits and operations.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience with RHEL Satellite/Foreman, Kickstart, IdM/FreeIPA/AD integration, and secrets management (e.g., HashiCorp Vault).
• Exposure to container runtimes (Podman/Docker), Kubernetes (RKE/AKS/Openshift), and hardened container images.
• Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), cloud (AWS/Azure/Gov zones), and registry/artifact management.
• Monitoring stacks (Prometheus/Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch) and SIEM integrations.
• SSCP
• CySA+
• GSEC
• CASP+
• CISSP
• Red Hat Ansible Automation certification
• Terraform Associate
• Kubernetes certification