Systems Engineer

Position Summary:
The Systems Engineer is the hands-on individual responsible for the design security and dayto- day operation of the Wicked Problems Labs research computing environment spanning AWS cloud on-premises GPU/AI compute databases and systems security. This is a practitioner role for someone who provisions infrastructure configures and hardens systems and unblocks researchers directly with a high degree of autonomy in a fastmoving national security research setting.

About the Work Unit:
The Wicked Problems Lab applies advanced computing AI and data science to highconsequence national security problems with partnerships across the Five Eyes and Indo- Pacific communities. The environment is small technically sophisticated and fast-paced and its systems must be secure dependable and built to handle sensitive research data.

Key Functions and Expected Performance:
- Cloud & on-prem infrastructure: Design architect and operate the Labs hybrid environment AWS (EC2 VPC S3 IAM) under least-privilege and on-premises GPU/AI compute systems; scale storage and GPU capacity to meet workload demand; engineer for resilience through monitoring backup and disaster recovery; own workload placement across cloud and local systems for cost performance and data sensitivity.
- Systems configuration & administration: Administer Linux servers end to end; manageconfiguration as code (Terraform Ansible scripting) for reproducible documentedenvironments; own SSH/key lifecycle and access across a distributed fleet.
- Data & database management: Stand up secure tune and back up research databases (PostgreSQL NoSQL and comparable relational/vector stores); build and maintain reliable ETL and datatransfer/movement pipelines with attention to integrity throughput and reproducibility.
- Security & compliance: Harden systems against sophisticated threats patch/vulnerability management segmentation secrets management and endpoint detection and response; enforce access control and data-handling appropriate to sensitive research; comply with University and partner security requirements.
- Research enablement: Serve as first point of contact for researchers systems needs and AI/developer tooling; advocate for Vanderbilts core values; stay current with cloud GPU/AI and security technologies; other duties as needed.
- Networking & traffic analysis: Configure and troubleshoot network infrastructure (routers switches VPN segmentation); capture and analyze network traffic at the packet level; deploy and tune intrusion detection/prevention systems to monitor for and investigate anomalous activity.

Supervisory Relationships:
This position has no supervisory responsibility and reports administratively and functionally to the Director of the Wicked Problems Lab.

Education and Certifications
- Bachelors in Computer Science/Engineering or related field is necessary; equivalent experience may substitute. Relevant AWS/Linux/security certifications preferred.

Experience and Skills:
- 4 years hands-on systems/infrastructure administration is necessary with demonstrated command of AWS and strong Linux administration.
- Experience operating GPU compute for AI/ML (CUDA stack model serving/fine-tuning) is necessary; experience with enterprise-class NVIDIA GPU systems preferred.
- Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/Ansible) scripting (Bash/Python) database administration (PostgreSQL NoSQL or comparable) ETL/data-movement pipelines and working systems/network security knowledge are necessary.
- U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain/maintain a U.S. security clearance are preferred.