Senior Proxmox Cluster Engineer

Senior Proxmox Cluster Engineer

Nightwing provides technically advanced full-spectrum cyber, data operations, systems integration and intelligence mission support services to meet our customers’ most demanding challenges. Our capabilities include cyber space operations, cyber defense and resiliency, vulnerability research, ubiquitous technical surveillance, data intelligence, lifecycle mission enablement, and software modernization. Nightwing brings disruptive technologies, agility, and competitive offerings to customers in the intelligence community, defense, civil, and commercial markets.

Nightwing delivers advanced cyber operations, systems integration, data analytics, and intelligence mission support to address the national security community's toughest challenges. Our expertise spans cybersecurity, software engineering, enterprise IT, distributed data processing, and intelligence operations. We've built a strong reputation delivering mission-critical outcomes for DoD, IC, and national security customers. Learn more at

We're looking for a polygraph-cleared Senior Proxmox Cluster Administrator to take ownership of mission-critical virtualization infrastructure supporting multi-OS research environments. You'll collaborate directly with Nightwing engineers, mission partners, and government customers in a high-tempo operational setting.

This is a technical, hands-on role focused on ensuring platform availability, strengthening security controls, and advancing automation capabilities. Strong candidates will also have depth in Linux system administration and/or Dev Sec Ops  engineering practices.

Full-time onsite at National Business Park, Maryland

• Operate and maintain Proxmox VE clusters, including quorum health, HA configuration, node lifecycle management, and capacity planning
• Establish standardized workflows for VM and container provisioning
• Troubleshoot complex issues spanning compute, networking, and storage layers
• Configure and optimize host networking: bridges, bonding, VLAN trunking, and isolated management networks

• Implement and oversee backup strategies and disaster recovery capabilities
• Conduct regular restore drills to validate recovery procedures

• Create and maintain operational documentation including runbooks, standard operating procedures, topology diagrams, and change logs
• Produce compliance artifacts aligned with program security and audit requirements

• Work alongside Nightwing teams, mission partners, and government personnel to safely integrate new workloads
• Lead platform enhancement efforts and identify opportunities for operational improvements

• Manage hardened Linux baseline configurations and platform services across the environment
• Build automation solutions using Ansible and Git-based workflows to eliminate manual tasks and prevent configuration drift

• 10+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor's degree
• 6+ years with a Master's degree
• 4+ years with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field
• 14+ years of experience may substitute for a degree

• Proven Linux administration experience in production settings (RHEL, Ubuntu, or equivalent distributions)
• Operational background managing virtualization platforms at scale (Proxmox VE strongly preferred)
• Proficient in automation using Ansible and scripting with Bash and Python

• High availability & clustering:
  Understanding of quorum mechanics, failover processes, and maintenance procedures
• Performance analysis:
  Diagnosing resource contention (CPU/memory/I/O), capacity forecasting
• Network architecture: VLANs, link aggregation, traffic segmentation
• Storage systems:
  Experience with ZFS, Ceph, or distributed storage, backup/restore methodologies

• Current industry certification in one of the following domains:
• Systems administration, information security, networking, virtualization, IT management, or project…