Systems Administrator, Federal Programs

Systems Administrator, Federal Programs Location: Hybrid – Ability to travel to Patuxent River, MD, and work onsite 3x a week. Candidates must be located in or willing to commute within the DMV area. Compensation: $110,228 - 170,241 per year, depending on experience and qualifications. Employment Type: Full-Time Clearance Requirement : Active Secret clearance is required at time of hire What you can expect as the Systems Administrator, Federal Programs at Fortress… The Systems Administrator maintains and operates the technical systems that support Fortress risk initiatives for federal customers.

The role owns day-to-day system health across AWS, Azure, and Linux environments, ensuring the platforms government customers depend on remain available, secure, compliant, and performant. The position is hands-on and operations-focused. Core work includes monitoring system health, responding to incidents, applying patches and secure configuration baselines, and automating recurring operational work.

The role partners with engineering and cybersecurity colleagues to resolve technical issues before they reach customers. This is an individual contributor role requiring independent execution, disciplined troubleshooting, and comfort operating in regulated federal environments. Responsibilities Include: Maintain, monitor, and administer complex technical IT systems supporting federal vendor and product risk programs, ensuring availability and performance against service commitments.

Operate and sustain infrastructure across AWS and Azure cloud environments and Linux-based operating systems. Implement and maintain secure configuration baselines in accordance with DoD standards, including applying, validating, and remediating STIG findings to maintain required compliance thresholds. Respond to system incidents and outages, perform root cause analysis, and implement corrective actions to prevent recurrence.

Apply patches, updates, and configuration changes on a defined cadence through established change control processes, including submitting required change documentation for new software versions and configuration updates. Automate routine operational and administrative tasks using scripting and configuration management tooling. Implement and maintain monitoring, alerting, and logging to provide visibility into system health and performance.

Support backup, recovery, and continuity procedures, and participate in periodic restoration testing. Manage identity, access, and account provisioning in accordance with least-privilege and federal access control requirements. Maintain system documentation, runbooks, configuration records, and operational procedures so changes are traceable and recurring work is repeatable by others. Support vulnerability remediation activities in coordination with cybersecurity colleagues, tracking findings to closure within required timelines.

Support Authority to Operate (ATO) posture by providing technical artifacts, control evidence, remediation status, and system reporting for audits and assessments. Partner with engineering and delivery teams to support releases, environment builds, and deployments of Fortress SaaS solutions in controlled environments. Provide technical guidance to customer stakeholders and internal team members on system behavior and operational constraints.

Participate in an on-call rotation as required to sustain availability commitments. Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned. Minimum Qualifications: Minimum of three (3) years of experience in systems administration, infrastructure operations, or site reliability engineering, including at least one (1) year in a government or regulated environment. Demonstrated experience administering Linux environments, including comfort with command-line and terminal interfaces.

Working experience with AWS and/or Azure cloud environments, including compute, storage, networking, and identity services. Experience with scripting for operational automation using PowerShell, Bash, Python, or equivalent. Experience with monitoring and observability tooling and with responding to production incidents. Experience applying patches, updates, and configuration changes in controlled environments.

Experience implementing and remediating STIGs and supporting vulnerability management activities. Ability to work independently and execute technical tasks with limited oversight. Active Secret clearance required at time of hire. Must meet DoD 8570 / 8140 IAT Level II requirements at time of hire (e.g., Security+, CySA+, SSCP, or equivalent). Must be local to the DMV area and commutable to one or more preferred federal work depots, including: Naval Air Station Patuxent River (Pax River), MD and Washington Navy Yard , DC.

Preferred Skills: Experience supporting systems operating under an Authority to Operate (ATO) framework. Experience supporting Department of War, Navy, or other federal environments. Experience preparing and submitting configuration change documentation in government systems (e.g., DADMS). Experience participating in compliance reviews, audits, or control assessments. Experience with infrastructure as code tooling such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Ansible.

Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies. Experience with CI/CD pipelines and release automation. Relevant certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect or SysOps Administrator, Azure Administrator Associate, Red Hat Certified System Administrator, or Linux+. Certifications may be obtained after hire. Experience with reporting and dashboard tools such as Looker, Tableau, or Power BI.

Ability to independently use and refine AI-driven prompts to enhance the quality, efficiency, and insight of regular work processes. Education: Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or related discipline is required. Employee Benefits: Remote and Hybrid working environment Competitive pay structure Medical, dental, vision plans with employees covered up to 90% with highly progressive options for dependents and families Company paid life, short- and long-term disability insurance Employee Assistance Program 401(k) match Flexible Paid Time Off Parental Leave Employment Perks: We provide each employee with professional growth opportunities through succession planning, up-skilling, and certifications Tuition and certification reimbursement Employee Referral Programs Company Sponsored Events Fortress is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.

All employees and applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, disability, gender, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law. Fortress Information Security takes part in the E-Verify process for all new hires. For positions located in the US, the following conditions apply.

If you are made a conditional offer of employment, you will have to undergo a drug test. ADA Disclaimer: In developing this job description care was taken to include all competencies needed to successfully perform in this position. However, for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) purposes, the essential functions of the job may or may not have been described for purposes of ADA reasonable accommodation.

All reasonable a ccommodation requests will be reviewed and evaluated on a case-by-case basis.