Senior Cloud Systems Engineer

Markon is seeking an experienced Senior Cloud Systems Engineer to support an Intelligence Community client in Chantilly, Virginia. This position will design, secure, integrate, and optimize mission-critical cloud infrastructure and enterprise systems within classified environments. The Senior Cloud Systems Engineer will combine systems engineering expertise with hands-on AWS cloud administration, security engineering, automation, and virtualization technologies to deliver reliable, scalable solutions aligned with Sponsor requirements.

• Design, implement, maintain, and optimize secure cloud infrastructure and enterprise systems supporting mission-critical operations.
• Identify and assess technical, counterintelligence (CI), and operational risks, vulnerabilities, and single points of failure, recommending effective mitigation strategies.
• Conduct technical feasibility studies, vulnerability assessments, and gap analyses to evaluate existing and emerging capabilities.
• Evaluate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and emerging technologies through technical assessments and trade studies to support operational requirements.
• Assess and validate technical solutions against established system requirements, security controls, and operational objectives.
• Lead end-to-end system integration, testing, verification, and validation to ensure functionality, performance, and reliability.
• Develop and maintain system architecture diagrams, technical documentation, flowcharts, and engineering standards to support troubleshooting, process improvements, and cross-organizational collaboration.
• Translate business and mission requirements into secure, scalable, and maintainable technical solutions.
• Configure, administer, and maintain AWS cloud services within classified environments, supporting compute, storage, networking, security, and application deployment.
• Implement and maintain cloud security controls, including access management, network security policies, auditing, and multifactor authentication.
• Develop, test, and maintain automation scripts and software components using Python, Java, Type Script, and related technologies.
• Collaborate with engineering and development teams using Agile methodologies consistent with Sponsor project management and software development frameworks.
• Monitor and maintain cloud solutions in accordance with service-level agreements (SLAs), performance requirements, and operational specifications.

Required:

• An Active TS/SCI clearance with Full Scope Polygraph (FSP) is required to be considered for this role.
• Bachelor's degree and at least 8 years of relevant experience, including 2 years of Sponsor experience; OR
  • Master's degree and at least 6 years of relevant experience, including 2 years of Sponsor experience; OR
  • PhD and at least 3 years of relevant experience, including 2 years of Sponsor experience.
  • An additional 4 years of relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Demonstrated experience administering and maintaining AWS cloud environments, including classified AWS/C2S infrastructure.
• Hands-on experience with AWS technologies and associated services, including S3, EC2, Elastic Load Balancing, ECR, VPC subnets, Auto Scaling, Lambda, MSK, Sage Maker, and KMS, as well as Docker and Kafka.
• Demonstrated experience implementing cloud security controls, including security groups, network access control lists (ACLs), role-based access control (RBAC), and attribute-based access control (ABAC).
• Strong proficiency administering and troubleshooting Unix/Linux operating systems.
• Experience developing, writing, and testing code using Python, Java, and Type Script.
• Experience implementing and maintaining auditing solutions, enterprise multifactor authentication (MFA), OAuth-based authentication, and role-based access controls.
• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, including requirements analysis, technical risk assessment, integration, testing, and validation.
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts effectively to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Desired:

• Experience working within Agile software development frameworks.
• Experience supporting Java and PHP applications in Windows environments.
• Proficiency with HTML and Bash scripting.
• Experience with Cypher query language or Neo4j graph databases.
• Experience with database administration and optimization.
• Experience using Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and automation.
• Experience deploying and maintaining…