Cloud Engineer

THE ROLE Conselara is hiring a Cloud Engineer to run and harden the AWS and Azure environments behind federal health IT systems. This is a hands-on infrastructure and automation role, not a ticket queue. You will own production environments serving public-facing HHS properties that carry real uptime and security obligations. Linux is the core of this role. Azure and Windows are what will make you the person we hire. Almost everything we run today is Linux on AWS, and we are deliberately building Azure and Windows Server capability alongside it. You would lead that work rather than inherit it. We are a small company, so this seat carries real ownership. Nobody will do either half of it for you. Location. This is a remote position. Candidates based in Maryland, Washington DC, or Northern Virginia are strongly preferred, since the team and our federal clients are in the DC metro area and occasional in-person collaboration is easier from the region. WHAT YOU WILL DO • Operate and harden production AWS (EC2, RDS, VPC, IAM, S3, CloudWatch) for public-facing federal web systems under uptime commitments. • Build out Azure capability: AKS or App Service, Entra ID, Azure Monitor, and infrastructure as code in Terraform or Bicep. • Administer Linux at depth on RHEL and Ubuntu, including shell scripting, performance tuning, patching, and the kind of troubleshooting that ends an escalation instead of forwarding it. • Administer Windows Server where the workload calls for it, including AD and Entra integration. • Automate the work using Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions), and container orchestration on Kubernetes, EKS or AKS. • Support security and compliance: NIST 800-53 control implementation, FedRAMP-aligned environments, continuous monitoring, vulnerability remediation, and evidence for ATO packages. In federal health IT the compliance work is part of the engineering, not an afterthought. • Support Drupal, PHP and WordPress hosting stacks, including Acquia and other managed hosting platforms. • Act as the escalation point for complex infrastructure problems, and raise the team's floor through documentation and knowledge sharing. WHAT YOU NEED • 5 or more years administering Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu) in production, including shell scripting and performance troubleshooting. • 3 or more years hands-on AWS, building and operating production workloads rather than console familiarity. • A current Azure certification: AZ-104, AZ-305 or AZ-500. Azure is the differentiator for this role and strong Linux without it does not clear the bar. We ask for the certificate rather than years of experience because it is the one Azure claim we can verify before we talk. • Windows Server administration experience. • Infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible or equivalent) used on a real team. • Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines. • 2 or more years supporting federal government contracts. You have worked inside the federal operating environment and can speak to it concretely: security controls under FISMA or FedRAMP, evidence gathering for an ATO package, change control on a system with real users, and delivering against a contract rather than an internal roadmap. HHS experience is a strong plus. • Must be authorized to work in the United States. Conselara does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience. WHAT WILL MOVE YOU TO THE TOP OF THE LIST • An AWS Professional or Specialty certification: Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, Security, Advanced Networking, or Machine Learning. • A Kubernetes certification (CKA or KCNA). • Having taken a system through an ATO or FedRAMP authorization end to end. • Observability depth with Datadog, CloudWatch, or Prometheus and Grafana. • Operational database familiarity: MySQL, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB. • Awareness of Section 508 accessibility obligations on federal web systems. WHO THIS IS NOT FOR A cloud architect who has stopped touching systems, or a Linux administrator with no interest in Windows and Azure. This role needs someone genuinely comfortable on both sides. It is also not a first federal role. The compliance work here is part of the engineering, and we need someone who has already done it rather than someone learning it on a live system. COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS Salary range: $135,000 to $160,000 per year, depending on experience and certifications. Performance bonus: up to 20% of base salary annually, based on individual and Company performance. Benefits: • Medical, dental and vision through CareFirst. Conselara pays 50% of the premium for each, and coverage is available immediately on hire. • 401(k) administered by Ubiquity with a 4% employer match, after six months of employment. • 120 hours (15 days) of paid time off per year, accruing each pay period. Accrued unused PTO is paid out on separation. • 11 paid holidays per year, following the federal holiday schedule. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Conselara, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. As a federal contractor, Conselara complies with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act.