Principal Engineer - Systems; Unix Systems Administrator

Are you looking for a unique opportunity to be a part of something great? Want to join a 17,000-member team that works on the technology that powers the world around us? Looking for an atmosphere of trust, empowerment, respect, diversity, and communication? How about an opportunity to own a piece of a multi-billion dollar (with a B!) global organization? We offer all that and more at Microchip Technology Inc.
People come to work at Microchip because we help design the technology that runs the world. They stay because our culture supports their growth and stability. They are challenged and driven by an incredible array of products and solutions with unlimited career potential. Microchip’s nationally-recognized Leadership Passage Programs support career growth where we proudly enroll over a thousand people annually. We take pride in our commitment to employee development, values-based decision making, and strong sense of community, driven by our Vision, Mission, and 11 Guiding Values;

we affectionately refer to it as the Aggregate System and it’s won us countless awards for diversity and workplace excellence.
Our company is built by dedicated team players who love to challenge the status quo; we did not achieve record revenue and over 30 years of quarterly profitability without a great team dedicated to empowering innovation. People like you.

We are seeking a highly experienced Systems Administrator to engineer, secure, and maintain business-critical Linux and FreeBSD infrastructure across both bare-metal hardware and virtualized platforms. You will serve as a primary technical authority on system architecture and security compliance, ensuring our environments meet stringent federal and defense-industry standards.

• Design, deploy, and maintain enterprise Linux and/or FreeBSD environments on-premises and within cloud infrastructure environments.
• Implement deep system hardening and mandatory access controls using SELinux by writing custom policies.
• Apply, automate, and maintain strict security baselines according to DISA STIGs and CIS Benchmarks.
• Architect and manage secure enclaves compliant with Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) standards for the safe processing and storage of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).
• Deploy, secure, and manage virtualized environments and containerized workloads.
• Automate patching, configuration management, and compliance auditing across all hardware and cloud perimeters, utilizing in-house and industry automated tools (e.g., Ansible).
• Troubleshoot complex OS, network, and storage issues at the kernel and hypervisor levels.

Experience: 10+ years of hands‑on, enterprise‑level system administration experience specifically with Linux and/or FreeBSD operating systems.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field.

Clearance Eligibility: Must be a U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI U.S. Government Security Clearance.

Security & Hardening: Proven track record of hardening systems using DISA STIGs and CIS Benchmarks without breaking production workloads, practical knowledge of SELinux configuration.

Federal Compliance: Strong working knowledge of CMMC frameworks and the specific technical guardrails required for handling CUI.

Infrastructure Versatility: Demonstrated ability to provision, manage, and secure operating systems directly on bare‑metal hardware, as well as within scalable cloud environments.

Modern Workloads: Solid foundational knowledge of virtualization technologies and containerization runtimes.

We encourage candidates to apply if they hold one or…