Senior Linux Engineer- SME

Job Title: Senior Liunx Engineer - SME

Location: Herndon VA

Duration: / Term: 6 months

Job Description:

Experience Desired: 13 Years

Job Description:

We are seeking an experienced Linux Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support and lead large-scale infrastructure migration and transformation projects involving enterprise Linux environments. This role will play a critical part in planning executing and validating migrations from legacy platforms to modern Linux infrastructure across on-premise virtualized and cloud environments.

The Linux SME will provide deep technical expertise during assessment design migration and post-migration stabilization phases ensuring minimal disruption to business operations. The role will also serve as the highest level of technical escalation (L4) for complex migration-related issues including system compatibility performance tuning and platform optimization.

The ideal candidate will have strong experience in enterprise Linux administration automation virtualization and cloud platforms along with proven experience delivering data center or platform migration projects. This position will also contribute to migration planning architecture decisions automation of migration activities and knowledge transfer to operations teams to ensure long-term platform stability.

Key Responsibilities

• System Administration & Engineering
  • Design deploy and manage enterprise Linux environments (RHEL CentOS Ubuntu etc.)
  • Install configure and maintain physical and virtual Linux servers
  • Perform kernel tuning system performance optimization and capacity planning
  • Manage high-availability and clustering solutions
  • Implement OS-level security hardening and compliance policies
  • Advanced Troubleshooting (L4 Escalation)
  • Act as the highest escalation point for critical production... issues
  • Perform root cause analysis (RCA) for major incidents
  • Debug kernel-level and performance-related problems
  • Handle complex system outages and recovery scenarios
• Automation & Configuration Management
  • Develop automation scripts using Bash Python or Perl
  • Implement configuration management tools (Ansible Puppet Chef)
  • Automate patch management and system provisioning
  • Support Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practices
• Cloud & Virtualization
  • Manage Linux workloads in AWS/Azure/GCP environments
  • Support containerized environments (Docker Kubernetes)
  • Administer virtualized environments (VMware KVM)
  • create and maintain technical documentation and SOPs
  • Mentor junior (L1 L3) administrators

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 13 15 years of IT Infrastructure experience with strong specialization in Linux platform administration engineering and enterprise infrastructure support.
• Proven experience managing and supporting large-scale enterprise Linux environments ensuring system reliability performance optimization and operational stability.
• Strong expertise in the Linux boot process and startup sequence including BIOS/UEFI initialization bootloader (GRUB) configuration kernel loading initramfs system initialization (systemd/init) and transition to user space.
• Advanced troubleshooting capabilities for Linux boot failures and startup issues including kernel panics filesystem corruption bootloader misconfiguration initramfs failures and service startup errors with the ability to resolve issues at each stage of the boot process.
• Extensive experience in system-level troubleshooting and performance analysis including kernel logs system logs and recovery procedures to restore system functionality.
• Hands-on experience supporting large-scale Linux infrastructure environments with enterprise-grade monitoring patching and lifecycle management.
• Solid experience with virtual machine lift-and-shift migrations including hands-on involvement in large-scale VM migration projects across datacenters or cloud environments.

Core Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in:
  • RHEL / CentOS / Ubuntu administration
  • Shell scripting (Bash)
  • Python scripting
  • Systemd and Linux service management
  • Linux networking
  • Storage management (LVM NFS etc.)
  • System performance monitoring and tuning

Tools & Technologies

• Configuration Management
  • Ansible
  • Puppet
  • Chef
• Cloud Platforms
  • AWS
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Containers & Orchestration
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes

Preferred Skills

• Experience with DevOps and CI/CD environments
• Knowledge of Linux security frameworks (SELinux AppArmor)
• Exposure to monitoring tools (Prometheus Grafana Nagios Zabbix)
• Experience with large-scale infrastructure automation
• RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu
• Shell scripting (Bash)
• Python scripting
• Systemd networking storage management

Education:

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science Electrical Engineering or related field
• Certification : AWS Certified Solutions Architect

Key Skills:

Linux Boot Tourbleshoot Migration Automation