Senior Infrastructure/ Platform Engineer (TS/SCI) (Washington DC-Baltimore Area)

Senior Infrastructure/ Platform Engineer (TS/SCI): Hybrid, Suitland, MD

A fast-growing, profitable defense technology company is hiring a Senior Infrastructure/ Platform Engineer. They build data management and AI platforms for maritime domain awareness, and their software runs in the field with U.S. Navy customers.

This role is on the team that builds their secure developer platform. Defense teams working on classified networks usually start with an empty environment: no package registries, no code hosting, none of the usual developer tools. This platform gives them a ready-to-use environment on classified networks, with source control, artifact repositories, packages and CI/CD already in place. The company builds it, uses it every day and supports it.

What You'll Do:

You'll be the on-site partner to a small core infrastructure team. That team writes infrastructure as code in unclassified environments. Your job is to make that code run on the Secret-side and air-gapped networks, where things are always a little different.

• Bring existing infrastructure-as-code into classified and air-gapped environments, deploy it, troubleshoot it and get it working.
• Write new code when an environment behaves differently than expected. About 60% of the work is adapting existing code and 40% is writing new code.
• Commit your changes back to the main codebase as a full contributor, not just someone who reports what broke.
• Self-host and maintain the tools a secure developer environment needs, such as Git hosting, artifact repositories, identity/SSO and package management.
• Deploy and run services on Kubernetes without relying on managed services.
• Help with CI/CD, DevSecOps pipelines, secrets and configuration management, and observability.
• Work across codebases outside your own when needed. The team is small, so there are no narrow lanes.

Experience Requirements:

• Active TS/SCI clearance. The work itself is at the Secret level, but the facility requires TS/SCI to get in.
• Strong hands-on experience self-hosting applications , with on-prem or bare-metal experience. You've run your own infrastructure instead of relying on managed services.
• Deep experience with Kubernetes and Docker . Standing up a cluster from scratch is a big plus.
• Experience with infrastructure as code using Pulumi or Terraform .
• Solid AWS experience, especially building environments from the ground up.
• Experience with identity management and SSO (e.g., Keycloak, Authentik, or other identity providers).
• Experience with package and artifact management (e.g., Artifactory, Nexus).
• CI/CD experience, ideally with GitHub Actions .
• Strong Linux and networking fundamentals.
• Ability to code in TypeScript and/or Go .

Nice to Have

• Experience deploying to air-gapped or classified environments
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as CMMC, PCI or SOC
• Security+ or AWS Solutions Architect certification
• Experience with monorepos, change data capture, IoT or sensor data, DSP, or geospatial/GIS work

Who Thrives Here

• Curious: you tinker, build and experiment outside of work.
• Fearless: you'll jump into an unfamiliar codebase or a broken environment and figure it out.
• Strong opinions, held loosely: you push for the right approach and change your mind when the evidence says to.
• You build things to last, not just to get through a short contract.

Side projects matter here. If you have a home lab, open-source contributions, or a GitHub/GitLab full of experiments, include it. The more varied, the better.

Work Setup

• Hybrid in Suitland, MD, and on-site time varies with the work. Some weeks you won't need to go in at all. Other weeks you may be on-site all week to get a deployment working.

Why This Role

• Your work is deployed and used by the Navy, not stuck in a long program that's outdated before it ships.
• The company is profitable and growing, with a flat structure and direct access to leadership.
• Benefits include unlimited PTO plus dedicated sick time, 11 paid holidays, medical/dental/vision, a 401(k) with match, performance bonuses, a home office stipend and certification reimbursement.