The Role
Operates and improves the reliability, security, performance, and resilience of mission-critical DoD systems. Responsibilities include monitoring, automation, incident response, root-cause analysis, infrastructure provisioning, CI/CD support, vulnerability remediation, system hardening, backup and disaster recovery, documentation, and cross-functional coordination. The role requires on-site support in Rhode Island, occasional travel, and after-hours or on-call availability.
Summary Generated by Built In
Overview
AMERICAN SYSTEMS is an employee-owned federal government contractor supporting national priority programs through our strategic solutions in the areas of Information Technology, Test & Evaluation, Program Mission Support, Engineering & Analysis, and Training.
We are seeking a journeyman-level Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to improve the availability, performance, security, and operational resilience of mission-critical systems in a Department of Defense environment. The SRE will combine systems administration, software engineering, automation, and operational support practices to build reliable and scalable services.
The successful candidate will monitor system health, automate operational processes, investigate incidents, eliminate recurring problems, and collaborate with engineering, cybersecurity, network, and software teams. This position requires full-time, on-site support in Middletown, Rhode Island, with occasional travel to customer or program locations.
Responsibilities- Operate, monitor, and maintain mission-critical applications, services, servers, and supporting infrastructure.
- Develop and maintain service-level indicators, objectives, and operational metrics to measure system reliability.
- Build dashboards, alerts, and automated health checks to identify availability, performance, capacity, and security issues.
- Investigate system incidents, perform root-cause analysis, and implement corrective and preventive actions.
- Automate deployment, configuration, monitoring, recovery, and routine system-administration activities.
- Develop scripts and tools using Python, Bash, PowerShell, or comparable languages.
- Support continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines in accordance with program security and change-control requirements.
- Reduce operational toil by standardizing processes and automating repetitive tasks.
- Support infrastructure provisioning and configuration using approved infrastructure-as-code and configuration-management tools.
- Analyze system performance, capacity, reliability, and resource utilization and recommend improvements.
- Develop and test backup, restoration, failover, disaster-recovery, and continuity-of-operations procedures.
- Participate in release planning, deployment readiness reviews, maintenance activities, and production validation.
- Support vulnerability identification, system hardening, patching, remediation, and security compliance activities.
- Apply applicable DoD cybersecurity requirements and Security Technical Implementation Guides.
- Create and maintain system diagrams, operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, incident reports, and configuration documentation.
- Coordinate with software developers, system administrators, cybersecurity personnel, network engineers, and customer representatives.
- Participate in scheduled maintenance and provide after-hours or on-call support when required.
- Travel occasionally to customer or program sites.
- U.S. Citizenship.
- Active DoD SECRET security clearance.
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, engineering, or a related discipline and approximately three years of relevant experience. Additional relevant experience, education, or technical training may be considered in lieu of a degree.
- Journeyman-level experience in site reliability engineering, DevSecOps, systems engineering, software engineering, systems administration, or infrastructure operations.
- Experience administering Linux and/or Windows server environments.
- Experience with scripting or software development using Python, Bash, PowerShell, Go, or a similar language.
- Experience with system monitoring, logging, alerting, performance analysis, and incident response.
- Working knowledge of:
- TCP/IP networking and common network services
- Server, storage, virtualization, and application infrastructure
- Source-code management and version-control practices
- Configuration management and deployment automation
- System security, access controls, patching, and vulnerability remediation
- Backup, recovery, and service-continuity practices
- Ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues across application, operating system, network, and infrastructure layers.
- Ability to create clear technical documentation and communicate technical findings to engineering and customer stakeholders.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a controlled, on-site environment.
- Ability and willingness to travel occasionally.
- Experience supporting classified systems, DoD networks, or mission-critical environments.
- Familiarity with observability and monitoring platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack, Splunk, Nagios, or similar tools.
- Experience with automation and configuration-management technologies such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or Salt.
- Experience with CI/CD platforms such as GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps.
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform.
- Experience with containers and orchestration technologies such as Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, or OpenShift.
- Experience with VMware, KVM, or comparable virtualization platforms.
- Familiarity with reliability-engineering practices, including service-level indicators, service-level objectives, error budgets, blameless post-incident reviews, and capacity planning.
- Familiarity with DevSecOps practices, automated security testing, and software supply-chain security.
- Knowledge of DoD cybersecurity requirements, DISA STIGs, vulnerability-scanning tools, and Risk Management Framework processes.
- Relevant certifications, such as:
- CompTIA Security+, Linux+, Network+, or Server+
- Red Hat Certified System Administrator or Engineer
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator
- Cloud, DevOps, or site reliability engineering certification
- Familiarity with undersea platforms or previous fleet experience is highly desired.
Skills Required
- U.S. citizenship
- Active DoD Secret security clearance
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience, education, or training
- Approximately three years of relevant experience
- Journeyman-level experience in site reliability engineering, DevSecOps, systems engineering, software engineering, systems administration, or infrastructure operations
- Experience administering Linux and/or Windows server environments
- Experience with Python, Bash, PowerShell, Go, or a similar programming language
- Experience with system monitoring, logging, alerting, performance analysis, and incident response
- Knowledge of TCP/IP networking and common network services
- Knowledge of server, storage, virtualization, and application infrastructure
- Knowledge of source-code management and version-control practices
- Knowledge of configuration management and deployment automation
- Knowledge of system security, access controls, patching, and vulnerability remediation
- Knowledge of backup, recovery, and service-continuity practices
- Ability to troubleshoot across application, operating system, network, and infrastructure layers
- Ability to create technical documentation and communicate findings to engineering and customer stakeholders
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a controlled, on-site environment
- Ability and willingness to travel occasionally
- Experience supporting classified systems, DoD networks, or mission-critical environments
- Familiarity with observability and monitoring platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack, Splunk, or Nagios
- Experience with Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Salt, or similar automation technologies
- Experience with GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps
- Experience with Terraform or similar infrastructure-as-code tools
- Experience with Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, or OpenShift
- Experience with VMware, KVM, or comparable virtualization platforms
- Familiarity with SRE practices, including SLIs, SLOs, error budgets, post-incident reviews, and capacity planning
- Familiarity with DevSecOps, automated security testing, and software supply-chain security
- Knowledge of DoD cybersecurity requirements, DISA STIGs, vulnerability scanning tools, and Risk Management Framework processes
- Relevant certifications such as CompTIA Security+, Linux+, Network+, Server+, RHCSA, RHCE, CKA, or cloud, DevOps, or SRE certifications
- Familiarity with undersea platforms or previous fleet experience
AMERICAN SYSTEMS Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about AMERICAN SYSTEMS and has not been reviewed or approved by AMERICAN SYSTEMS.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — The ESOP provides an ownership stake that adds long-term financial value and complements base pay. This employee-ownership structure stands out within the overall package.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with automatic enrollment and broad investment options, alongside the ESOP, strengthens retirement pathways beyond salary. These features are presented as competitive within the defense contracting space.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Base pay is considered fair or comparable to industry peers, particularly for technical roles. Starting compensation is described as solid for areas like cybersecurity, systems administration, and IT engineering.
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The Company
What We Do
AMERICAN SYSTEMS is an employee-owned government services contractor that delivers professional, technical, information technology, engineering, analysis, testing, evaluation, and training solutions for complex national-priority programs. Based in McLean, Virginia, the company supports federal customers—particularly defense and other Department of Defense missions—with mission-essential and information engineering, digital engineering, systems integration, cybersecurity, cloud, data, and lifecycle IT services across critical public-sector environments.
