Senior Instrument Engineer Jobs in Virginia (NOW HIRING)

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Reston, VA, US

Salary Range: $140,000.00 To $165,000.00 Annually

Want to energize your career?

Looking for stability with the freedom to innovate? At CertiPath you can have both while making the world more secure and simplifying access processes. We are seeking an experienced Senior AWS Platform Engineer to lead the design, security, and scaling of our AWS EKS-based CI/CD platform and bootstrap our IVIP production cloud services. Join our team of engineers, make a difference, and crush your goals at CertiPath .

I’ve never heard of CertiPath . What do you do?

CertiPath is a trusted leader in high-assurance digital identity and access management solutions. Since 2004, we have helped commercial organizations and government agencies modernize how people securely access facilities, networks, and critical resources. With the stability of an established company and the agility of a growing technology business, we foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous growth. Our mission is simple: enable secure, trusted access in an increasingly connected world.

You will be a technical leader and individual contributor who sets the bar for AWS Kubernetes and SaaS infrastructure excellence across the organization. You’ll design and deliver secure, high-performance, production-grade CI/CD systems on AWS EKS using GitHub Actions and partner closely with platform, security, and executive leadership to shape the technical roadmap for our AWS EKS.

• Lead the design, provisioning, and ongoing maintenance of production-grade AWS EKS clusters (Rancher-managed) using Infrastructure as Code.
• Own the reliability, availability, performance, and security of production cloud services, including participation in an on-call rotation and off-hours incident response.
• Architect, deploy, and scale Actions Runner Controller (both legacy and the new GitHub-supported gha -runner-scale-set) on AWS EKS with epre .
• Champion cybersecurity best practices across the entire platform, including least-privilege IAM, pod security policies, network policies, secrets management, vulnerability scanning, and compliance controls.
• Optimize container image building pipelines (Docker-in-Docker → Kaniko ) and manage internal registries (Nexus, Harbor) to support our SaaS delivery platforms.
• Write and maintain Terraform, Helm, and Kubernetes manifests for EKS, networking, node pools, storage, and CI/CD components while driving GitOps practices.
• Help design and manage hybrid networking between AWS EKS and on-prem Nutanix environments, including VLANs, routing, Load Balancer services, and secure egress to GitHub Enterprise and other SaaS services.
• Instrument Prometheus/Grafana stacks, monitor runner pod lifecycle, build performance, and cluster resource utilization while implementing proactive scaling.
• This is not a people-management role; it’s a deeply technical position for infrastructure engineers who still love building and automating while influencing architecture and strategy at the highest level.

Location:Reston, VA (Hybrid)

What qualifications do you look for?

• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain a government clearance.
• At least a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 8+ years of progressive professional software engineering experience or DevOps experience.
• 5+ years of expert-level AWS Kubernetes experience with EKS (Rancher-managed), EC2 (spot + reserved instances), VPC networking, IAM, Security Groups, Transit Gateway, and cost-optimized SaaS infrastructure on AWS.
• Deep expertise building and operating production CI/CD platforms at scale, including on-call support and incident response.
• Expert-level Kubernetes and CI/CD experience, including Actions Runner Controller (legacy + new gha -runner-scale-set), Helm,
• Strong IaC and automation skills with Terraform, Helm, and Kubernetes manifests, and GitOps workflows.
• A strong security-first mindset with hands-on experience implementing cybersecurity best practices in SaaS and hybrid cloud environments.
• Proven experience successfully working with CI/CD, container platforms, and workloads in AWS EKS (Nutanix NKP experience is a big plus).
• Strong experience with Python for writing scripts and debugging.
• Familiarity with Agentive Artificial Intelligence in Engineering
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; you can explain complex technical concepts to engineers and non-engineers.
• A demonstrated ability to balance speed and quality; you ship fast without sacrificing long-term maintainability.

We’re extra impressed by folks who have:

• AWS DevOps Engineer - Professional certification.
• Experience with Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP), or Prism Central.
• Familiarity with Harbor Registry (RBAC, robot accounts, garbage collection).
• Experience with air-gapped or restricted network deployment.
• Python or Go scripting for automation.
• A background in FinTech or regulated SaaS environments.

What kind of benefits does CertiPath offer?

At CertiPath, we value trust, flexibility, and investing in our people. We are committed to creating an environment where employees can do meaningful work, continue to grow, and enjoy life outside of work.

Our benefits include:

• Competitive medical, dental, and vision coverage (including domestic partner coverage).
• Health Savings Account (HSA) options, 401(k) with a generous company match, company-paid Life, AD&D, Short-Term, and Long-Term Disability.
• Unlimited PTO, seven company holidays, & a company-wide week-long break at the end of each year, flexible working hours that support work-life balance.
• LifeMart employee discount program.
• Professional development opportunities and ongoing learning support.

CertiPath is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local, or international law.