Senior System Engineer

Job Title: Senior Systems Engineer

Job Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Trace Systems is seeking an innovative and highly driven Senior Systems Engineering to join our growing team in Stuttgart, Germany. This role will be a part of a dynamic, multi-disciplined team, creating systems infrastructure design and standardizing our services/applications for our Combatant Commands on their coalition networks. 

The Senior Systems Engineer is responsible for supporting planning, designing, and implementing communication services, systems, networks, & applications while continuously improving server/application services for the customer. The Senior Systems Engineer supports multiple virtualization technologies in the enterprise and works in Networking, Storage, Configuration Management, Cloud Architecture, and the Project Management team.

The Senior Systems Engineer is accountable for significantly contributing to overall technical architecture, design, stability, resiliency, and general health related to the data center infrastructure including virtualized server, application, and the virtualized desktop infrastructure systems and other C2 applications; is a top level technical contributor with advanced knowledge and experience in the area of server, application, and desktop virtualization, administration, and related hardware/software.

The Senior Systems Engineer is responsible for solving problems of diverse scope where analysis of situations requires evaluation and judgment; is responsible for evaluating current systems; assisting in designing solutions for our government client, and at times, can provide informal supervision, leadership and training to less experienced technicians. The responsibilities of this position also include participation in the planning and management of technical implementations related to data center migrations.

Primary Job Responsibilities Include: 

• Perform site surveys, gather requirements, and develop designs
• Develop to be system architecture
• Document cutover plans to move services operating on one network with a topology to another network with a different topology
• Develop and document system software migration and configuration cutover plans
• Document and maintain Requirements Traceability Matrix & System Requirements Matrix
• Responsible for administering Microsoft Windows servers operating in a virtual environment including packaging, deployment scripting and testing, shell scripting, and tier 3 technical issue resolution
• Document pre-install test check out plans
• Brief and communicate plans to team and customer
• Designing, recommending, and deploying emerging data center technologies
• Supports the deployment of virtual Microsoft Windows desktops through VMware Horizon technology
• Architecting system logs and analyzation through tools like Splunk and VMware vRealize Log Insight
• Performing routine audits of systems and software
• Work with Network Team to plan, install, configure and test new hardware and software for enterprise solutions
• Answering technical queries from other IT support teams (DBAs, Networking, Architecture)
• Responsibility for documenting the configuration of the current and future infrastructures
• Contributes to design of enterprise server systems including but not limited to technical architecture, stability, and platforms
• The assessment and optimization of data center systems, through systems monitoring, statistics, daily health checks. Responsible for reporting KPIs and trends all facets of the environment. Coordinates service calls and schedules appointments with software vendor and consultants to ensure satisfactory resolutions of problems and malfunctions.
• Maintains accurate and comprehensive documentation diagrams of the enterprise infrastructure and communications flow and routing to include PPS with origin and destination data flows for firewall configurations
• Research, evaluate, and recommend new tools and technologies to meet operational requirements
• Identify trends and abnormalities and proactively take steps to prevent performance impacts to  environment and business function
• Perform pro-active support functions and reporting to maintain the integrity of the enterprise environment and business function
• Support and contribute in developing and maintaining 3 year strategic plan, to mitigate risks, address organizational deficiencies, and facilitate new requirements, technologies and growth
• Analyze, determine, and document technical requirements
• Communicate accurate and useful status reports to management on a timely basis
• Anticipate issues and proactively resolve them
• Prepare contingencies, scenarios, scenario plans and action items to resolve issues
• Identify and initiate continuous improvements
• Design and Document test procedures and System Operational Verification Test Plans
• Instill commitment to quality, customer service, ownership, and teamwork
• Build strong customer relationships. Promote internal/external customer service among organization
• Maintain awareness of new technological developments in industry and processes- presents new concepts appropriately and champion successful implementation
• Key contributor in the research, planning and implementation of data center build and migration projects in accordance with and support of business needs goals and objectives
• Verifying system security and Information Assurance (IA) posture and Security Technical Implementation Guidance (STIG) compliance of systems on Coalition networks and in the Trace Dev Lab
• Where appropriate, provide on-going training and technical direction to other team members pertaining to data center environment optimization, installation, upgrades, configuration, and troubleshooting
• Willing and available up to travel 20% during times of implementation
• Willing and available for on-call support
• Other duties as assigned

• Eight years direct experience, in the last ten years
• Current DoD 8570 IAT Level II certification
• Active, in-scope US Government issued Secret clearance is required
• Due to the nature of the work and contract requirements, US Citizenship is required

• PowerShell scripting experience
• Strong understanding of Enterprise Architecture and its supporting processes and tools
• In depth knowledge of solutions such as server virtualization, high-availability clustering, and system design
• Experience in the implementation of cross domain solutions, switches, routers, and firewalls
• Experience in implementation of CENTRIXS networks and supporting infrastructure
• Extensive knowledge of MS Windows Server (2012 R2, 2016, 2019) environments and be able to build, configure, and maintain
• Excellent knowledge of core communication protocols such as TCP/IP, UDP, SSL, HTP/S and building application-specific protocols on top of them
• Understanding of information security practices (cryptography, privilege separation, RBAC, INFOSEC, Auditing, patching, Security Benchmark Compliance, OS hardening, etc)
• Understanding of clustered or pooled virtualization concepts from leading platforms such as VMware vSphere
• Experience with multi-core, multi-threaded, distributed systems, and unified computing
• Experience working with performance analysis and optimization of hybrid cloud systems
• Experience in developing large scale and distributed systems
• Understanding of proactive monitoring concepts, including experience configuring and deploying Network and systems monitoring, SNMP, and SYSLOG e.g., Ganglia, Nagios, Zenoss, Splunk, SolarWinds, and VMware vRealize Log Insight
• Knowledge of Internet/Web related protocols and technologies including: Apache, Tomcat, Web Services, DNS, registrars, SSL
• Ability to apply sound troubleshooting methodology to isolate and resolve root cause of reported issues
• Strong experience in implementing and troubleshooting vCenter and Virtual Machines
• Strong experience in implementing and troubleshooting Virtual Networking configurations
• Advanced knowledge and understanding of TCP/IP in the virtual environment, including VLANs, routing and virtual switches
• Troubleshooting of Hypervisors and Resource pool related issues
• Excellent verbal and written communication across all levels of seniority and the customer base
• Exhausts all reasonable efforts to solve issues prior to escalation
• Experience with Cisco ASR/ASA, or virtual firewall appliances is a big plus
• Strong understanding of the technology as well as hands on experience deploying VMware NSX
• Strong experience with Enterprise level VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure implementation and development
• Extensive knowledge of Linux (RHEL, CentOS, Scientific Linux) and be able to build, configure, and maintain via Command Line Interface (CLI)
• Excellent understanding of open source frameworks, with experience deploying various open source packages and/or application stacks into sponsor's production landscape
• Understanding of configuration management systems (e.g. Puppet, Chef, vCM) and concepts behind mass configuration
• ITIL Foundations Certification

• Bachelor's Degree in a related discipline (e.g. Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Network Engineering, Math). With at least 15 years of general experience of which 12 years is directly related experience, a degree is not required.

Trace Systems Inc. was founded to support and defend our nation's security interests at home and abroad–– whenever and wherever. We provide enterprise IT, engineering, full life-cycle communications, cybersecurity, cloud and virtualization services and solutions to the United States Department of Defense and other federal agencies.  

To Apply: We invite you to put your talents to work by joining a growing team of dynamic professionals here at Trace Systems! Be part of a culture at our leading-edge company where you can achieve great things while fostering a satisfying and rewarding career progression. To learn more about our current openings, text ‘tracejobs’ to 97211 or apply directly through our website at: www.tracesystems.com. #jointracesystems

Trace Systems is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, disability, veteran status, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.