Lead Site Reliability Engineer

Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

Hybrid work: On-site time is spent working alongside the team in Chantilly, VA. Off-site time is spent working from your home or our office in Herndon. VA.

Employment Type: Full-time, Salaried

Overview

We're looking for a Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to provide technical leadership and help guide the execution of work across our SRE team. This is a hands-on engineering role with an emphasis on coaching other engineers, translating technical objectives into actionable work, and maintaining high standards for reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence. You'll work alongside the team to maintain and improve our software products and platforms across ILS and client environments. You'll help engineers develop their technical capabilities, make sound implementation decisions, and deliver solutions using automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, and modern engineering practices.

Success in this role means not only solving complex technical problems yourself, but also helping the broader team become more capable, effective, and independent.

Not your usual government contracting role

❌ This is not...

• a billable role
• "butt in seat" contracting
• a fill-the-timecard exercise (also: no timecards!)
• a random checklist of oddly specific things you must know to get an "upgrade" on contract

✅ This is...

• a full time staff role at ILS, providing our clients with awesome commercial capabilities in their private environments.
• a high impact role where success enables missions and unlocks commercial incentives.
• an opportunity to build using transferrable, state-of-the-industry engineering patterns and skills.
  

Benefits and Perks

• Company 401(k) contribution: 10% of salary. Immediate vest, no strings.
• $1,800 in your HSA each year.
• Fully paid health, dental, and vision insurance premiums for you and your family.
• Generous time off, 10 company holidays, and additional company down days announced each year.
• Cash incentive plans based on role-related metrics and project objectives.

Work Schedule & Flexibility

• SRE Shifts: We provide 24/7 production services to our clients. SREs rotate duty shifts during business hours at client sites. After-hours coverage is shared across the whole team and is on call (not on-site).
  
• Flexible Work: When not on SRE duty, you'll work remotely with a flexible schedule. Team meetings, whether virtual or in-person, are held during standard business hours and scheduled in advance.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain uptime, performance, and security of ILS products across internal and client environments
• Leverage automation and Infrastructure-as-Code to manage and scale infrastructure
• Respond to and resolve support requests during assigned shifts, escalating as needed to meet SLAs
• Contribute to:
  • Development of SRE Playbooks to automate avoidance, detection, or remediation of operational issues
  • Code review for quality and security purposes
  • Accreditation and compliance initiatives
  • Platform capability enhancements and other technical development tasks

Key Skills and Experience

Our technical stack relies on technologies such as Kubernetes, Terraform, and AWS, with custom software generally written in Go or Python.

We're looking for an experienced engineer with a strong foundation in automation, DevOps, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and production operations. Beyond technical proficiency, successful candidates should demonstrate:

• The ability to break complex technical problems into manageable work suitable for engineers with different experience levels.
• Experience mentoring other engineers, providing constructive technical feedback, and helping teammates develop their capabilities.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills, including the ability to guide investigations into unfamiliar or complex failures.
• Sound engineering judgment when evaluating technical approaches, implementation risks, and operational tradeoffs.
• Experience reviewing technical implementations for correctness, maintainability, reliability, and security.
• Clear communication skills and the ability to coordinate technical work across a team.
  

Prior experience with every technology in our stack is not required. We value engineers who can learn, adapt, and apply strong engineering fundamentals to new problems.

Security Requirements

This role requires active US Government security clearance. Candidates must comply with all related obligations and procedural requirements.