Senior infrastructure automation engineer

Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base.

Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers’ mission and end users’ priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

About the Role

As our Senior Infrastructure Automation Engineer, you will play a critical role in securely and efficiently onboarding customer facilities into our hybrid-cloud platform services. You will design and implement scalable infrastructure automation, configuration-driven tooling, Linux systems, and network infrastructure workflows that make deployment and lifecycle management across customer environments repeatable, secure, and efficient. You will partner closely with the Connectivity and broader engineering teams to automate the provisioning, configuration, validation, maintenance, and sustainment of infrastructure spanning facility-edge, on-premises, and cloud-connected environments.

Our Performance Culture

We measure performance across two key dimensions: How you perform your role (Our Core Values) and What your role entails (Your Execution).

What You’ll Do

• Infrastructure Automation & Infrastructure-as-Code: Lead the design and implementation of reusable tooling, configuration management, and network infrastructure-as-code workflows that automate the lifecycle of Connectivity network infrastructure across customer environments.
• Linux & Network Infrastructure: Develop and maintain automation for Linux-based systems and network appliances, including system bootstrapping, secure configuration generation, package and software management, network configuration, updates, and validation.
• Infrastructure Provisioning & Lifecycle: Translate facility onboarding and sustainment needs into scalable technical workflows that improve delivery speed, consistency, and quality, including infrastructure provisioning, secure connectivity, configuration management, validation, monitoring, upgrades, and sustainment.
• Security by Design: Build automation and infrastructure patterns that align with zero-trust principles, network segmentation requirements, access controls, and critical infrastructure security expectations.
• Technical Design & Problem Solving: Break down ambiguous infrastructure and workflow problems into clear technical designs, implementation plans, and well-scoped engineering tasks.
• Engineering Standards: Produce clear design documentation, implementation guidance, and operational handoff materials. Help reinforce strong standards for code quality, testing, and maintainability within the team’s Connectivity engineering work.
• Elevate the Team: Provide thoughtful code and design reviews, mentor junior and mid-level engineers, and help grow the team’s software-driven approach to provisioning and managing Connectivity network infrastructure.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

• Experience: 5+ years of experience building infrastructure automation, systems engineering, network infrastructure, or platform engineering solutions in complex environments.
• Infrastructure Automation: Strong experience automating infrastructure provisioning, configuration, or lifecycle management using disciplined engineering practices such as Git workflows, structured configuration data, infrastructure-as-code or configuration management, CI/CD pipelines, testing, scripting, and code reviews.
• Linux Expertise: Strong hands-on experience with Linux operating systems, system configuration, package and service management, debugging, and scripting.
• Networking Knowledge: Solid understanding of network design, segmentation, VPNs, firewalls, encryption, and secure connectivity patterns.
• Technical Leadership: Proven ability to independently solve ambiguous technical problems within a complex platform or infrastructure domain, drive solution design through implementation, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and support the growth of less experienced engineers.
• Travel: Ability to travel quarterly for Program Management Reviews and team collaboration.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strongly prefer candidates residing in the Denver metro area.
• Prior experience working within DoD, Air Force, or Federal contractor environments.
• Relevant technical certifications such as CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+, CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, AWS Advanced Networking, etc.
• Experience with OT/ICS, critical infrastructure, industrial networks, facility-edge environments, and network automation tools (e.g., Ansible, Cisco DevNet, open-source routing tools).

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: $155k-$195k per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.

Our Typical Hiring Process

Find Your Fit: Your journey starts here. Explore and apply to our open positions to find the right role for your skills.

Initial Chat: A brief call with our recruiting team to learn about your background and answer your initial questions about Simplesense.

Values & Vision: A conversation with a hiring manager to discuss how your aspirations align with our mission and goals of the team.

Show Your Skills: Complete a technical assessment that reflects the work you’d be doing.

Team Interview: Interview with the team to discuss your experience and see if we’re a great match.

Final Handshake: A final conversation to ensure we’ve answered all your questions before making a decision.

Welcome to Simplesense!