Cloud Operations Engineer — Denver

In a world of possibilities, pursue one with endless opportunities. Imagine Next!   At Parsons, you can imagine a career where you thrive, work with exceptional people, and be yourself. Guided by our leadership vision of valuing people, embracing agility, and fostering growth, we cultivate an innovative culture that empowers you to achieve your full potential. Unleash your talent and redefine what’s possible.   Job Description: Our Space Operations Program Directorate is passionate about making America the undisputed leader in Space because we understand that ensuring our nation’s security for future generations depends on it. Parsons creates game-changing space solutions by teaming highly respected subject matter experts with brilliant technologists. Do you want to be part of a team that is helping the government solve major national security challenges in the space domain? We need your help.   Our Team is seeking a highly experienced and certified Cloud Operations Engineer to join our team. The Cloud Operations Engineer will ensure the continuous health, availability, security, system currency, and repeatability of the organization’s cloud environments and core operational platforms. Serving as a hybrid system administrator and cloud operations specialist, you will manage core internal services—specifically Keycloak for identity management and Mattermost for team collaboration—while maintaining Terraform and Ansible automation scripts to guarantee rapid infrastructure reconstitution. You will actively drive system lifecycle management, ensuring all operating systems, software packages, dependencies, and platform applications remain fully updated, patched, and compliant against security vulnerabilities. You will work closely with development teams to support smooth, reliable application deployments across multi‑cloud, hybrid-cloud orchestration platforms. You will need experience with DoW cloud service offerings, software development processes, system authorization processes, and policies to create cohesive and integrated system architectures.   This position offers a unique opportunity to contribute to critical missions by leveraging advanced cloud technologies to enhance data processing, analytics, and integration capabilities. In this role you will work closely with government stakeholders, software developers, mission operators, and commercial vendors to ensure commercial capabilities are integrated, tested, and transitioned effectively into the Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) cloud environment.   This position is eligible for limited remote work, though the ideal candidate should be located in Colorado Springs, CO.   As a Cloud Operations Engineer at Parsons, you will be responsible for the following:   Responsibilities: • Monitor cloud infrastructure, manage system logs, rapidly troubleshoot operational disruptions, and perform root-cause remediation. • Support software lifecycle and patch management efforts, ensuring operating systems, container base images, AMI templates, and software dependencies are consistently kept current and supported. • Perform routine Linux and cloud administration, including automated system deployments, health monitoring, user access management, and resource optimization across AWS environments. • Administer, configure, and upgrade core operational tools, applying major/minor vendor releases and security patches for Keycloak (IAM/SSO) and Mattermost (collaboration platform). • Develop, test, and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and configuration management scripts with Terraform and Ansible to enable automated reconstitution of fully patched cloud environments and applications. • Proactively monitor vulnerability scan results, track End-of-Life (EOL) software timelines, and rapidly apply remediation patches for vulnerability and security advisories.   Required Skills: • Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline and a minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in systems operations, infrastructure support, cloud operations, or IT engineering. Additional experience may be considered in lieu of degree. • Strong technical expertise with core cloud infrastructure services (EC2, VPC, S3, IAM, CloudWatch, security groups). • Familiarity managing system updates, software lifecycles, and automated patch management across cloud environments using development pipelines. • Extensive troubleshooting abilities and comfort working in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities. • Ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders to ensure cloud solutions meet mission requirements and follow best practices. • Strong communication skills, including the ability to create high-quality technical documentation and presentations for senior leadership. • DoD 8140/8570 IAT Level II certification (Security+) or ability to obtain certification within 60 days of employment.   Desired Skills: • Strong understanding of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and serverless architectures. • Cloud-related foundational and/or associate level certifications, such as, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner,  AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional,AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate or AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate.   • Experience writing, testing, and executing Terraform and Ansible scripts for automated provisioning and infrastructure reconstitution. • Maintain version controlled Terraform and Ansible repositories capable of rebuilding complete, up-to-date infrastructure and application stacks on demand. • Create and maintain system administration logs, user privilege matrices, version upgrade procedures, and disaster recovery runbooks. • Evaluate and select appropriate cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, GovCloud, etc.) based on workload needs, compliance requirements, and cost considerations. • Model capacity, scalability, and resiliency needs; implement monitoring, observability, and cost-optimization strategies (right-sizing, auto-scaling, reserved instances). • Define end-to-end architectural blueprints for cloud-enabled solutions (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and ensure alignment with U.S. government IT regulatory frameworks. • Embed security controls including identity and access management, encryption, and network segmentation into all system designs. • Communicate architectural trade-offs and risk assessments to executives and non-technical stakeholders; produce architecture diagrams, decision logs, and reference implementations. • Ensure data consistency, latency, and reliability across cloud and hybrid environments. • Familiarity with networking concepts (VPC, VPN, DNS, load balancing). • Understanding of security frameworks (Zero Trust, IAM, encryption at rest/inflight). • Exposure to DevOps culture and CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Argo). • Experience with Agile/Scrum development processes. Security Clearance Requirement: None This position is part of our Federal Solutions team. The Federal Solutions segment delivers resources to our US government customers that ensure the success of missions around the globe. Our intelligent employees drive the state of the art as they provide services and solutions in the areas of defense, security, intelligence, infrastructure, and environmental. We promote a culture of excellence and close-knit teams that take pride in delivering, protecting, and sustaining our nation's most critical assets, from Earth to cyberspace. Throughout the company, our people are anticipating what’s next to deliver the solutions our customers need now. Salary Range: $103,500.00 - $181,100.00 We value our employees and want our employees to take care of their overall wellbeing, which is why we offer best-in-class benefits such as medical, dental, vision, paid time off, 401(k), life insurance, flexible work schedules, and holidays to fit your busy lifestyle! This position will be posted for a minimum of 3 days and will continue to be posted for an average of 30 days until a qualified applicant is selected or the position has been cancelled. Parsons is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other protected status. We truly invest and care about our employee’s wellbeing and provide endless growth opportunities as the sky is the limit, so aim for the stars! Imagine next and join the Parsons quest—APPLY TODAY! Parsons is aware of fraudulent recruitment practices. To learn more about recruitment fraud and how to report it, please refer to   https://www.parsons.com/fraudulent-recruitment/ .