Entry Level Solutions Architect Jobs in Silver Spring, MD

Position Description: CGI Federal has an exciting opportunity for Virtualization Engineers within our Intel sector advancing the national security mission through cutting edge technology. You must have a passion for keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology advancements and leveraging your knowledge on a highly collaborative team to deliver state-of-the-art capabilities. The Virtualization Engineer supports the IT team by maintaining, monitoring, and troubleshooting virtual machines and basic server infrastructures. They assist senior engineers by building virtual environments, applying system patches, and performing routine hardware health checks. CGI Federal is growing its high-performance team whose members share a passion for building high-quality, scalable, advanced IT solutions in a collaborative, fast-paced, outcome-driven mission. This position is located in our Arlington office; however, a hybrid working model is acceptable. Your future duties and responsibilities: Key Responsibilities (Entry Level)
• VM Management: Create, provision, and deploy basic virtual machines (VMs) based on standardized templates.
• System Monitoring: Track the performance of virtual servers, ensuring they have enough CPU, memory, and disk space.
• Routine Maintenance: Assist with software upgrades, system patching, and regular backups.
• Basic Troubleshooting: Identify and resolve routine issues related to virtual networking (e.g., VLANs) and data storage.
• Documentation: Create and update technical runbooks, diagrams, and standard operating procedures Key Responsibilities (Junior Level)
• VM Management: Create, clone, modify, and delete virtual machines and templates based on standard provisioning requests.
• System Monitoring: Monitor virtual infrastructure performance using built-in tools (e.g., CPU, RAM, and storage utilization) to spot minor bottlenecks before they escalate.
• First-Line Support: Troubleshoot basic end-user and server connectivity issues related to the virtualized environment.
• Routine Maintenance: Assist with periodic patching, updates, and managing snapshots/backups of VMs.
• Documentation: Create and maintain up-to-date knowledge base articles, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and asset tracking. Key Responsibilities (Mid-Level)
• Infrastructure Management: Deploy, configure, and maintain virtualized environments across platforms like VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Nutanix.
• Complex Troubleshooting: Resolve escalated technical issues (L1 tickets) regarding virtual machine (VM) performance bottlenecks, host resource exhaustion, and compatibility problems.
• Lifecycle & Patch Management: Execute routine patching, upgrades, and firmware updates utilizing management tools like VMware vCenter or SDDC Manager.
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Administer enterprise backup solutions (e.g., Veeam, Cohesity) and assist in validating recovery point/time objectives (RPO/RTO).
• Resource Optimization: Monitor and tune CPU, memory, and storage allocations to ensure optimal performance and scalability across data centers.
• Automation & Scripting: Write and maintain scripts (PowerShell, Python, or Ansible) to automate VM provisioning and configuration management.
• Security & Compliance: Implement security hardening, audit virtual environments, and ensure alignment with corporate governance. Key Responsibilities (Senior Level)
Architecture & Engineering
• Architect, design, and deploy hyper-converged and highly available virtualization solutions to support diverse, mission-critical workloads.
• Oversee private and public cloud federation, ensuring seamless cloud-bursting and robust disaster recovery (DR) architectures.
• Develop and enforce lifecycle management, capacity planning, and technical blueprints for data center solutions.
Advanced Operations & Escalation
• Serve as the Tier-3 / final-escalation point for the resolution of catastrophic system failures, latency bottlenecks, and vendor-level outages.
• Perform complex Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and execute detailed system troubleshooting across physical servers, hypervisors, and SAN/NAS storage arrays.
• Lead workload migrations from legacy environments to modern, software-defined data center (SDDC) architectures.
Automation & Scripting
• Drive a culture of Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), eliminating manual administration through the use of VMware Aria/vRealize, PowerShell, Terraform, and Ansible.
• Automate the provisioning, monitoring, and scaling of virtual environments, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) platforms, and Kubernetes/container-based virtualization (e.g., Red Hat OpenShift).
Security & Compliance
• Implement security hardening standards using CIS, STIG, and Zero-Trust benchmarks across the virtualization stack.
• Collaborate heavily with security teams to manage micro-segmentation, firewall policies, and virtual network security.
Leadership & Vendor Management
• Mentor Level-1 and Level-2 support engineers to foster continuous growth and team competency.
• Serve as the primary technical liaison during high-impact outages, collaborating directly with Tier-3 vendor support (e.g., VMware, Microsoft, hardware OEMs) Key Responsibilities (SME Level)
• Advanced Architecture & Design: Architect zero-trust, hyper-converged, and software-defined architectures (SDDC) integrating compute, storage, and software-defined networking (e.g., VMware NSX-T, Cisco ACI).
• Extreme Troubleshooting & RCA: Serve as the final escalation point for the most severe, system-wide incidents. Conduct deep-dive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and collaborate directly with vendor engineering teams (VMware, Nutanix, Microsoft) to patch or resolve deep compatibility issues.
• Automation & Orchestration: Drive Infrastructure as Code (IaC) pipelines. Eliminate manual provisioning by writing and maintaining advanced infrastructure automation scripts in Python, PowerShell, PowerCLI, or HashiCorp Terraform.
• Capacity & Performance Tuning: Design proactive, AI-driven performance monitoring strategies. Oversee hardware lifecycles, and execute complex capacity planning to align virtual environments with dynamic, highly distributed AI/ML or Big Data workload demands.
• Resiliency & DR: Architect, automate, and regularly test geo-redundant Disaster Recovery (DR) and business continuity systems, focusing on low Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).
• Mentorship & Strategy: Mentor L2/L3 engineers, define operational best practices, and help establish organizational security and compliance standards. Required qualifications to be successful in this role: All roles require an active TS/SCI with Poly Entry Level:
• Education: o High School Diploma/GED with 4 years of relevant experience,
o Associates Degree with 2 years of relevant experience, o or Bachelor's Degree with 0 years of relevant experience
• Basic IT Knowledge: Fundamental understanding of operating systems (Windows and Linux) and networking.
• Certifications: Entry-level credentials such as the VMware Certified Technical Associate (VCTA) or Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals are highly preferred.
• Soft Skills: Strong analytical problem-solving skills and a willingness to learn complex enterprise systems Junior Level/Moderate:
• Education: o High School Diploma/GED with 6 years of relevant experience,
o Associates Degree with 4 years of relevant experience, o Bachelor's Degree with 2 years of relevant experience, o or Masters Degree with 0 years of relevant experience
• Foundational Knowledge: Solid understanding of core IT infrastructure components, including networking (IP, VLANs), storage (SAN/NAS), and server hardware.
• Platform Familiarity: Basic exposure to hypervisor platforms like VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V.
• Basic Scripting: Familiarity with command-line tools and scripting languages (like PowerShell or Bash) for basic automation.
• Soft Skills: Strong problem-solving abilities, excellent written/verbal communication, and an eagerness to learn complex enterprise systems. Mid-Level/Complex:
• Education: o High School Diploma/GED with 8 years of relevant experience,
o Associates Degree with 6 years of relevant experience, o Bachelor's Degree with 4 years of relevant experience, o or Masters Degree with 2 years of relevant experience,
o or PhD with 0 years of relevant experience
• Core Technical Knowledge: In-depth understanding of storage area networks (SAN/NAS), networking (VLANs, vSwitches, NSX), and x86 server architecture.
• Certifications: Highly desired credentials include VMware Certified Professional (VCP), VMware Cloud Foundation Specialist, or Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate.
• Soft Skills: Strong analytical capabilities, ITIL process understanding, and excellent communication skills for cross-team collaboration. Senior Level/Exceptionally Complex:
• Education: o High School Diploma/GED with 10 years of relevant experience,
o Associates Degree with 8 years of relevant experience, o Bachelor's Degree with 6 years of relevant experience, o or Masters Degree with 4 years of relevant experience,
o or PhD with 2 years of relevant experience
• Core Technologies: Deep, hands-on expertise with VMware vSphere, ESXi, vSAN, and NSX-T. Experience with alternative hypervisors (KVM, Hyper-V, Nutanix) and VDI environments (Omnissa Horizon).
• Automation: Proficiency with scripting languages and automation engines (PowerShell, PowerCLI, Terraform, Ansible).
• Integrations: Solid understanding of shared storage protocols (SAN/NAS/NVMe over Fabrics) and enterprise server hardware (e.g., HPE, Dell).
• Certifications: Highly valued senior certifications, such as VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX), VMware Certified Professional (VCP), or Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. SME Level/Exceptionally Complex:
• Education: o High School Diploma/GED with 12 years of relevant experience,
o Associates Degree with 10 years of relevant exp