Platform Engineer II

About Agile Defense


At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. That's why we always look to the future and embrace change with an unmovable spirit and the courage to build for what comes next.


Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility-leveraging a foundation of speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to strengthen and protect our nation's vital interests.



Requisition #: 1656

Job Title: Platform Engineer II

Location: McLean, VA
Job Description

We are seeking a hands-on Platform Engineer II to own and operate our internal lab and demo environments. This role supports a hybrid platform ecosystem spanning on-prem lab infrastructure, virtualization, cloud services, Kubernetes/containerized workloads, CI/CD tooling, artifact repositories, automation, and developer enablement.

The Platform Engineer II will help maintain environment readiness, improve deployment consistency, support development teams with repeatable deployment patterns, and ensure customer demos, product experiments, prototypes, training, and onboarding environments are reliable and well documented.

This is a practical, hands-on platform engineering role for someone who can troubleshoot across the stack, automate repeatable work, document operational procedures, and help bring structure to a fast-moving lab environment.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a self-starter who is comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment. You do not need to be a senior architect, but you should be able to troubleshoot independently, ask good questions, document what you learn, and help improve the way environments are built and maintained.

You should be comfortable working across multiple areas of the platform stack and willing to jump into whatever the lab environment needs, whether that is fixing a deployment, debugging ingress, improving a Jenkins or GitHub Actions workflow, troubleshooting a virtual machine, writing a validation script, updating documentation, or helping a development team standardize how an application is deployed.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day operations, readiness, and reliability of lab and demo environments.

• Maintain and support Kubernetes and containerized application deployments.

• Support on-prem lab infrastructure, virtualization platforms, virtual machines, and related network/storage dependencies.

• Support development teams by creating reusable deployment patterns, templates, documentation, and runbooks.

• Build, maintain, and improve CI/CD workflows using tools such as Jenkins and GitHub Actions.

• Troubleshoot issues across Linux systems, virtual machines, containers, Kubernetes resources, networking, DNS, TLS, ingress, and application runtime environments.

• Manage and support artifact repository workflows using tools such as Nexus or Artifactory.

• Maintain deployment documentation, environment standards, operational procedures, and troubleshooting guides.

• Help ensure customer demos, training environments, and prototype deployments are stable, prepared, and repeatable.

• Automate environment setup, validation checks, deployment steps, and routine operational tasks using Bash, Python, or similar scripting tools.

• Contribute to platform and deployment design discussions by recommending practical improvements and helping turn architecture direction into repeatable implementation patterns.

• Support basic security and compliance activities, including patching, vulnerability remediation, secrets management, TLS/certificate management, RBAC, least privilege, and secure configuration practices.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first six months, success in this role means:

• Lab and demo environments are more stable, better documented, and easier to maintain.

• Development teams can deploy more consistently using standard patterns, templates, and runbooks.

• Customer demos, product experiments, and training environments require less last-minute manual effort and are more reliable.

Education and Background

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience.

The ideal candidate will have experience in platform engineering, DevOps, systems engineering, cloud engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical role. Experience should include hands-on work with Linux systems, containers, CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure concepts, virtualization or on-prem lab environments, networking fundamentals, and deployment automation.

Years of Experience 4-6 years Required Skills

• 4-6 years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, systems engineering, cloud engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical role.

• Hands-on Linux administration and troubleshooting experience.

• Experience working with containers and Docker.

• Kubernetes user-level experience, including deploying applications, reviewing pods/logs/events, and working with services, ingress, namespaces, config maps, and basic Helm usage.

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or similar tools.

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform or similar tools.

• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure concepts, preferably with AWS and/or Azure.

• Experience supporting lab, development, or demo environments using virtualization or on-prem infrastructure.

• Understanding of networking fundamentals, including DNS, TLS, ingress, routing, firewalls, and basic connectivity troubleshooting.

• Experience writing Bash, Python, or similar scripts to automate repeatable platform, deployment, or operational tasks.

• Experience with artifact repositories such as Nexus or Artifactory.

• Ability to work in ambiguous environments, identify practical next steps, and drive tasks to completion.

• Strong attention to detail and commitment to maintaining reliable, documented environments.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Proxmox, VMware, Hyper-V, or similar virtualization platforms.

• Experience with Ansible or other configuration management tools.

• Experience with Harness or other modern CI/CD platforms.

• Experience with SonarQube or similar code quality/security tooling.

• Experience with Vault or other secrets management platforms.

• Familiarity with container/image scanning, vulnerability management, and secure software delivery practices.

• Basic awareness of CMMC, NIST 800-171, ATO, FedRAMP, STIGs, or federal compliance environments.

• AWS Associate-level certification.

• RHCSA or other Linux certification.

Working Conditions

This role is hybrid, with occasional on-site support required for lab and demo environment activities. Work will primarily involve computer-based engineering tasks, including platform operations, troubleshooting, documentation, CI/CD support, automation, and collaboration with development teams.

The role may occasionally require support for customer demos, training environments, prototypes, and internal engineering activities. The position may require limited physical interaction with lab equipment, servers, networking devices, or workstations, including basic setup, cabling, inspection, or troubleshooting. No significant physical labor is expected.

Our Core Values


Employees of Agile Defense are our number one priority, and the importance we place on our culture here is fundamental. Our culture is alive and evolving, but it always stays true to its roots. Here, you are valued as a family member, and we believe that we can accomplish great things together. Agile Defense has been highly successful in the past few years due to our employees and the culture we create together.


What makes us Agile? We call it the 6Hs, the values that define our culture and guide everything we do. Together, these values infuse vibrancy, integrity, and a tireless work ethic into advancing the most important national security and critical civilian missions. It's how we show up every day. It's who we are.

• Happy - Be Infectious. Happiness multiplies and creates a positive and connected environment where motivation and satisfaction have an outsized effect on everything we do.
• Helpful - Be Supportive. Being helpful is the foundation of teamwork, resulting in a supportive atmosphere where collaboration flourishes, and collective success is celebrated.
• Honest - Be Trustworthy. Honesty serves as our compass, ensuring transparent communication and ethical conduct, essential to who we are and the complex domains we support.
• Humble - Be Grounded. Success is not achieved alone, humility ensures a culture of mutual respect, encouraging open communication, and a willingness to learn from one another and take on any task.
• Hungry - Be Eager. Our hunger for excellence drives an insatiable appetite for innovation and continuous improvement, propelling us forward in the face of new and unprecedented challenges.
• Hustle - Be Driven. Hustle is reflected in our relentless work ethic, where we are each committed to going above and beyond to advance the mission and achieve success.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us. apply for this job