Senior Virtualization Solutions Architect - job 1 of 2

Overview

Are you an experienced Senior Virtualization Solutions Architect that would enjoy providing Veterans and their families the most efficient and timely service and benefits? If so, we may have an opportunity for you! 

TISTA associates enjoy above Industry Healthcare Benefits, Remote Working Options, Paid Time Off, Training/Certification opportunities, Healthcare Savings Account & Flexible Savings Account, Paid Life Insurance, Short-term & Long-term Disability, 401K Match, Tuition Reimbursement, Employee Assistance Program, Paid Holidays, Military Leave, and much more!

Responsibilities

• Work as part of a modernization and innovation team to bring new automation, tooling, and improved processes to key data-center and cloud-based technology stacks.
• Cross-coordinate with multiple teams to understand challenge areas, build consensus, and design, and lead teams to implement technical solutions.
• Analyze, troubleshoot, and resolve technical challenges contributing to the organization’s key infrastructure needs.
• Identify changes for the infrastructure architecture from the reliability, performance, and availability perspective with a data driven approach.
• Design and build automation solutions to reduce manual workload and errors, increase efficiency, and solve organizational technical challenges.
• Work in an Agile team to plan, design, and implement medium to large-scale projects which will have a major organizational impact.
• Actively look for opportunities to improve the availability and performance of systems by applying the learnings from monitoring, observation, cross-team collaboration, and incident history.
• Lead technical support efforts in system architecture, system design, security requirements, integration and technical management 
• Design and implement VA internal and external Cloud-based solutions and infrastructure that spans multiple public and private Clouds and regions, including AWS, Azure, and client data centers (on-premise). 
• Automate management and orchestration tasks.
• Streamline processes and improve documentation.
• Work with heads of internal groups to find innovative solutions to their problems and make recommendations with Proof of Concepts or project initiatives. 
• Keep finding areas of improvements in the current infrastructure to be more resilient and reliable. 
• Work towards deprecating outdated systems at the VA in favor of newer cloud-native solutions.
• Support engineers in validating their implementation by thinking of data and logic edge cases that their original implementation does not handle.
• Advise customer in capacity planning operations and performance monitoring and management.
• Participate in security assessments and provide recommendations to improve security related processes and procedures.
• Monitor progress, manage risk, and ensure key stakeholders are kept informed about progress and expected outcomes, and propose and take corrective action as appropriate.
• Participate in the review and generate input of SA&A and required supporting system documentation as needed: Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Plans of Action and Milestones (POAMS).
• Assist with meeting eMASS’ VA requirements in support of identification of required security controls and supporting evidence.
• Support and report Plan of Action and Milestone (POAMs) to system owners at a detail level and manage and monitor for corrective actions.
• Provide input and guidance on systems engineering and security requirements for systems hosted in cloud (including FedRAMP) versus on-premise.
• Assess systems to analyze risk and report weaknesses findings, and work with developers and DBAs in addressing findings.
• Assess and review current technology infrastructure to identify key risk areas, and ensure adequate levels of controls are in place to address those risks.
• Participate in and support internal and external compliance initiatives including audit requests, table-top exercises, security reviews and other tasks associated with improving the company’s security posture.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in at least two of the following scripting languages: Bash, Python, and/or PowerShell.
• Extensive experience with software development practices (linting, code review, SDLC) and common tools (Git, GitHub, VS Code).
• Extensive experience with lower-level systems validation and testing, including test case development and automation.
• Experience with multiple virtualization (type 1 hypervisor) technology (VMware, KVM, Xen, Proxmox, OpenStack, OpenShift KubeVirt, Hyper-V etc.).
• Experience understanding customer challenges, deriving requirements, and designing solutions to address those challenges in the form of technical projects.
• Experience with programming languages (Python, Go, etc.), SDLC, and functional programming.
• Experience with writing scope of work and project proposal documentation from a technical perspective.
• Strong understanding of Linux, Windows, software development, systems, networking, and cloud concepts.
• Strong understanding of information security concepts and controls.
• Strong interpersonal and teaming skills; ability to set and enforce processes and influence engineers who are not direct reports.
• Strong communication and leadership skills to effectively provide leadership on projects and mentor junior engineers.
• Strong analytical, reading, and technical writing skills.
• High emotional intelligence and patience for navigating a challenging bureaucracy.
• Experience dealing with legacy, unreliable/undocumented third-party dependencies (both technology and human) preferred.
• Knowledge of and experience with Federal security regulations, standards, and processes including FISMA and NIST.
• Ability to design and lead projects with minimal direction, based on customer needs.
• Ability to grow and adapt to changing needs of the team and program as projects are completed and new projects are undertaken.

Desirable Additional Skills:

• Experience with Linux and Windows system administration.
• Experience or background with machine learning and AI.
• Experience working on an Agile (Kanban) team.
• Experience with relational (SQL) databases (Oracle, PostgreSQL).
• Experience with developing and managing POA&M’s 
• Relevant certifications related to any of the prior listed skills and technologies.
• Veteran’s Affairs experience is a plus.

Education:

• Master's Degree in related field of study 
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant work experience 

Clearance:

• The ability to pass a Tier 2/Modest Background Investigation

Location and Hours:

• Remote, USA. Occasional travel required (4-6 times yearly).
• Monday - Friday (8:00 AM - 4:30 PM US Central time)

Pay Range:

• The pay for this position ranges from $98,450 to $110,560 per year.
• The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.
• Certain positions are also eligible for additional forms of compensation, such as bonuses.
• TISTA associates are eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefits plan! More information can be found here: https://tistatech.com/working-at-tista/