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Senior Systems Engineer, IT Operations and Infrastructure
Job Location:
Job Location:
San Diego, CA - USA
Yearly Salary:
USD 116000 - 138000
Yearly Salary:
Posted:
19 September 2026 (Yesterday)
Posted:
Application Deadline:
17 December 2026
Application Deadline:
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Vacancies:
Department:
Job Summary
Who We Are
At Firestorm we are building the future of expeditionary defense manufacturing and autonomous systems. Modern conflict has exposed a fundamental problem: the systems needed most by operators are often too expensive too slow to produce and too difficult to sustain at scale. Firestorm exists to change that.
We develop mission-adaptable aerial systems and deployable manufacturing infrastructure designed to put capability directly into the hands of the warfighter. From modular unmanned aircraft to xCell our deployable microfactory our goal is to make defense systems rapidly deployable adaptable and producible at the point of need.
We are looking for builders operators and problem-solvers who want to work on meaningful technology with real-world impact.
About the Role
Firestorm builds uncrewed aircraft and the manufacturing network that produces them: full-capability plants deployable xCell edge factories and forward-deployed sites that stand up production near the point of need.
Crucible is the software that runs that network. It runs in the cloud inside a factory and air-gapped in classified environments. At the edge Crucible has to operate reliably on local compute connect to factory equipment and keep working when cloud infrastructure and internet connectivity are unavailable.
We are hiring a Systems Engineer to support critical business operations infrastructure in the cloud and on-premiseMicrosoft 365 GCC-High Amazon-Gov and other systems.
What Youll Do
- Infrastructure Provisioning & Maintenance: Deploy configure patch and manage physical servers virtual machines cloud instances (AWS Azure GCP) and enterprise storage.
- System Monitoring & Health Checks: Implement and maintain observability tooling (e.g. Datadog Prometheus Grafana CloudWatch) to track system performance resource utilization and uptime.
- Incident Response & Triage: Serve as an escalation point for system outages and critical alerts; lead root-cause analysis (RCA) and document post-mortems to prevent recurrence.
- Automation & Scripting: Write and maintain scripts (Bash Python PowerShell) and infrastructure-as-code configurations (Terraform Ansible) to automate routine operational tasks and deployments.
- Network & Connectivity Management: Monitor core network services (DNS DHCP VPNs routing and firewalls) to maintain secure low-latency communication across environments.
- Backup & Disaster Recovery: Design schedule test and verify automated backups data replication and disaster recovery plans to ensure strict Recovery Point and Recovery Time Objectives (RPO/RTO).
- Security & Compliance: Apply system hardening standards manage access control (IAM/Active Directory/SSO) audit system logs and remediate CVE vulnerabilities in coordination with the security team.
- Capacity Planning & Performance Tuning: Analyze compute storage and network trends to optimize system performance and forecast hardware or cloud resource scaling needs.
- Documentation & Standard Operating Procedures: Author and update runbooks system architecture diagrams standard operating procedures (SOPs) and operational workflows for team use.
Required Qualifications
- U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance
- Operating Systems: Deep operational proficiency with Linux distributions (RHEL Ubuntu Rocky) and/or Windows Server environments including OS hardening kernel tuning and troubleshooting.
- Scripting & Automation: Strong practical scripting skills in at least one language (Bash Python or PowerShell) to automate administrative tasks and repetitive workflows.
- Networking Fundamentals: Solid understanding of core networking protocols and services (TCP/IP DNS DHCP VLANs HTTP/S SSH VPNs and firewall rules).
- Virtualization & Cloud: Hands-on experience administering virtualized infrastructure (VMware ESXi/vCenter Hyper-V KVM) or public cloud platforms (AWS Azure or GCP).
- Monitoring & Tooling: Experience configuring and operating enterprise monitoring logging and APM tools (e.g. Prometheus Grafana Datadog Splunk ELK or CloudWatch).
- Experience with Microsoft GCC-High environments AWS-Gov and similar secure environments that have CUI and ITAR data
- Experience with CMMC v2 and NIST 800.171 compliance needs
Preferred Qualifications
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Working knowledge of configuration management and provisioning tools such as Terraform Ansible Puppet or SaltStack.
- Containerization: Familiarity with Docker and container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes ECS).
- Identity & Security: Experience managing enterprise directory services IAM and SSO protocols (Active Directory Entra ID Okta SAML LDAP).
- Disaster Recovery: Direct experience designing executing and auditing multi-site backup strategies and failover simulations (e.g. Veeam Zerto AWS Backup).
- Experience with High Performance Compute (HPE Supermicro)
- Experiene with Enterprise Storage (NetApp)
Work Environment
- This role is based in San Diego CA.
- We welcome candidates who are local or open to relocating; relocation assistance is available and may be included in the offer package where appropriate.
Compensation
US Salary Range: $116000 $138000 USD
The posted salary range reflects an estimate based on a variety of compensation factors including but not limited to relevant experience education certifications specialized skills geographic location and business needs. Actual compensation may vary and this range is subject to change as our compensation structure or market conditions evolve.
Benefits & Perks
Our culture fosters collaboration respect and trust empowering passionate people to do their best work. We offer a competitive salary comprehensive benefits and opportunities for career addition to an opportunity to take part in an innovative collaborative and fast-growing business with a highly motivated and skilled team we also take pride in taking care of our employees. Here are just a few ways that we show our appreciation:
- We offer comprehensive medical dental and visions plans
- 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan to invest in your long-term retirement goals
- Equity grants for new hires
- Unlimited PTO
- Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a holiday hiatus in July & December.
- Generous Parental Leave
- Lifestyle Spending Account
- FSA
- DCFSA
- HSA
- Hospital Indemnity insurance
- Critical Illness insurance
- Accident insurance
- Basic Life/AD&D short-term and long-term disability insurance 100% covered by Firestorm. Plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your family.
- Mental Health Resources: We provide free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy and more. Additional work-life services such as free legal and financial support are available to you as well.
Export Control Compliance
To conform to U.S. government export control regulations including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR) you must be a U.S. citizen lawful permanent resident of the U.S. protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) or otherwise eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State or U.S. Department of Commerce.
Equal Opportunity Statement
Firestorm is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and upholding equitable hiring practices. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin disability protected veteran status or any other characteristic under federal state or local law including those with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws including the CA Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance. We actively encourage members of recognized minorities women Veterans and those with disabilities to apply and we work to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all applicants throughout the interview process.
Firestorm is committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible work environment. If you require accommodations or assistance during the application process please dont hesitate to reach out to us at so we can provide the support you need.
Required Experience:
Senior IC
