Operations Support Engineer / Systems Administrator
At Credence, we support mission-critical federal missions through technology, partnership, and trust. We provide solutions across cloud modernization, cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure, and advanced technology for defense and health organizations.
Credence is a privately held company recognized as a top place to work and listed on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list for more than a decade. We believe in servant leadership and focus on the success of our clients, employees, and partners.
Position Summary
Credence is seeking an Operations Support Engineer / Systems Administrator to support systems engineering and hosting operations for federal customers.
The primary responsibility of this position is to support recurring system patching requirements, including scheduled nightly patching activities outside normal business hours. The selected candidate will execute and monitor existing AWX/Ansible patching automation, validate results, troubleshoot failures, and coordinate remediation activities across Linux and Windows environments.
The role will also support system administration, configuration management, vulnerability remediation, monitoring, troubleshooting, documentation, and other operational activities required to maintain secure and reliable hosting environments.
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
- Execute and monitor scheduled patching jobs through AWX/Ansible.
- Support scheduled nightly patching activities outside normal business hours, including patch preparation, execution, post-patch validation, and troubleshooting.
- Review AWX job results, investigate failed or incomplete patching runs, resolve issues, and coordinate re-execution when necessary.
- Review patching requirements, repository content, maintenance schedules, and approved change requests before patch execution.
- Validate system health, services, connectivity, and application availability after patching activities.
- Troubleshoot patching failures, package conflicts, repository issues, dependency problems, service failures, and unexpected system behavior.
- Monitor patching progress and provide status updates, completion reports, and exception information.
- Identify systems that cannot be patched and document the reason, impact, risk, and required remediation.
- Support Linux and Windows server administration, configuration, hardening, maintenance, and troubleshooting.
- Assist with vulnerability remediation and compliance-related system maintenance activities.
- Support server provisioning, operating system upgrades, configuration changes, system retirement, and technical refresh activities.
- Troubleshoot operating system, storage, networking, authentication, permissions, certificates, services, and application dependencies.
- Coordinate with Systems Engineering, Platform Engineering, application teams, cybersecurity personnel, and customer stakeholders to resolve technical issues.
- Assist with maintaining AWX job templates, inventories, variables, credentials, procedures, and related documentation.
- Use existing automation and develop scripts or process improvements to improve patching efficiency, validation, reporting, and operational support.
- Maintain accurate system records, patching documentation, procedures, runbooks, and operational reports.
- Follow approved change-management, incident-management, security, and configuration-management processes.
- Participate in scheduled maintenance activities, incident response, and other operational support activities as required.
- Participate in a rotating on-call schedule, if assigned.
Requirements
- Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.
- Must have at least 3 years of experience in systems administration, systems engineering, infrastructure operations, cloud operations, or a related technical field.
- Must have hands-on experience administering Linux or Windows server environments.
- Must have experience performing operating system patching, package management, system maintenance, and post-patch validation.
- Must have experience using AWX/Ansible or a similar automation platform for patching, configuration management, or systems administration.
- Must have experience troubleshooting AWX/Ansible job failures, playbooks, inventories, variables, package dependencies, repository issues, and execution results.
- Must have the ability to support scheduled nightly patching activities outside normal business hours, as required.
- Must have experience with Linux package-management tools such as DNF, YUM, RPM, or equivalent technologies.
- Must have experience with Windows patching or Windows Server administration.
- Must have experience using Shell, Python, PowerShell, or a similar scripting language.
- Must have familiarity with system monitoring, logging, service management, and basic networking troubleshooting.
- Must have the ability to follow established procedures while applying sound technical judgment to resolve issues.
- Must have strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Must have the ability to document technical issues, maintenance activities, exceptions, and resolution steps.
- Must have a CompTIA Security+ certification or the ability to obtain it within the first 60 days.
- Must have an AWS certification or the ability to obtain one within the first 90 days.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting RHEL, Amazon Linux, Windows Server, or other enterprise operating systems.
- Experience supporting systems hosted in AWS, AWS GovCloud, or other cloud environments.
- Experience with AWS Systems Manager, Red Hat Satellite, WSUS, repository mirrors, or similar patch-management and configuration-management tools.
- Experience with system hardening, STIGs, vulnerability remediation, or federal compliance requirements.
- Experience with EC2, EBS, S3, IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, and related AWS services.
- Experience troubleshooting DNS, networking, storage, authentication, certificates, and application dependencies.
- Experience supporting production environments with formal change, incident, and problem-management processes.
- Experience with enterprise monitoring, logging, ticketing, or configuration-management platforms.
- Experience developing automation for patching, validation, reporting, or operational support.
Salary Range: $85,000-$130,000 annually. Actual compensation will be determined based on the selected candidate's experience, education, skills, and overall qualifications.
Benefits
- Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
- Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
- Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
- Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
- Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
- Short Term & Long Term Disability
- Training & Development
Skills
As published by workable · 3 questions · 1 written answer
Basics
First name, Last name, Email, Headline, Please list your full legal first and last name (e.g., John L. Smith II), Please provide your preferred first name, Phone, By providing a phone number and submitting this form you consent to receive SMS text messages from Credence LLC in accordance with our SMS Privacy Policy (https://credence-llc.com/careers/sms-privacy/) Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency may vary. Reply No, to STOP and opt out., Address, Photo, Education, Experience, List any work related certifications or licenses you currently possess, Please comment on how your prior education and experiences qualify you for the type of employment you are seeking., Summary, Resume, Please indicate which active clearances you have, If you have a security clearance not listed, please fill in., Cover letter, Type of work desired, What is your annual salary expectation? (Ranges are welcomed- non-answers may delay your consideration), What date are you available to join Credence as a new hire?, Are you legally authorized to work in the U.S. as a U.S. citizen or Fully Naturalized U.S. Citizen? , Do you currently or will you in the future, require an immigration sponsorship and/or a host for a work visa authorization (e.g., F1 or H-1B)? (if hired, verification will be required consistent with federal law.) , Are you at least 18 years old? (if no, you may be required to provide authorization to work) , How did you hear about us? Was it a job board or an employee? Do tell...., Have you ever worked for Credence before? If yes, what year and in what role?, Credence honors our Service Members and wonder if you are a Veteran or have Veteran status?, Credence honors our Service Members and their spouses, have you ever been a Military Spouse?, Do you have any relatives employed by this organization?, I have disclosed all information that is relevant and should be considered applicable to my candidacy for employment. I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment drug test after receiving a conditional offer of employment, and must receive a negative result for illegal drug use before being permitted to commence work with Company. I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment medical examination after receiving a conditional offer of employment, and must meet the qualifications for the position, with or without reasonable accommodation, before being permitted to commence work with Company. I understand, where permissible under applicable state and local law, I may be subject to a pre-employment background check after receiving a conditional offer of employment to investigate my criminal background and other matters related to my suitability for employment. Initial to agree., I hereby certify that the information given by me is true in all respects. I authorize Company and its representatives to contact my prior employers and all others (with the exception of my current employer, only if I have marked "May we contact your present employer" on this application as "No") for the purpose of verification of the information I have supplied and release same from any liability resulting from the information released. I authorize employers, schools and other persons named on this application to provide any information or transcripts requested. Initials to agree, I understand employment with Company is also contingent on my providing sufficient documentation necessary to establish my identity and eligibility to work in the United States. If employed, I understand that as a condition of employment that I may be required to agree to and sign a non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and/or other similar agreements. I also agree to notify the organization during the pre-employment process of any non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and/or other similar agreements that I may have already signed with current and former employers. I expressly understand and agree that, if employed, my employment, having no specified term, is based upon mutual consent and may be terminated at-will, with or without cause, by either party (Company or me) without prior notice to the other, unless otherwise prohibited by law. I understand that no representation, whether oral or written, by any representative or agent of Company, at any time, can constitute an implied or express contract of employment. I further understand no representative or agent of Company has the authority to enter into an agreement for employment for any specified period of time or to make any change in any policy, procedure, benefit or other terms or condition of employment other than in a document signed by an authorized representative. I understand that the technical processing and transmission of the application, including my personal information, may involve (a) transmissions over various networks, including the transfer of this information to the United States and/or other countries for storage, processing and use by Company, its affiliates, and their agents; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks and devices. Accordingly, I agree to permit such parties to make such transmissions and changes, and hereby provide the necessary consent for the same. Initial to agree., Do you currently meet the worksite location requirements for being On-site or Hybrid as defined in the job description?, If “No”, are you willing to relocate to meet this requirement? Please note that candidates who are unable to work onsite or relocate will not meet the position requirements.
Pick from a list (2)
- Is a position dedicated to patch management acceptable for you?
- Do you have any limitations that would hender your availablity for off-hour maintenace windows as required?
Written answers (1)
- Describe your experience with patching mission systems in the public sector.