Systems Administrator

Position Description

The Engineering Division's System Administration Team seeks an experienced Linux Systems Administrator to define, implement, and maintain Linux software infrastructure supporting autonomous systems and robotics research within the Control & Autonomous Systems Engineering Group. The successful candidate will also contribute to broader Division-level IT initiatives, ensuring security, compliance, and operational excellence in a fast-paced, mission-driven research environment.

This role is critical to enabling cutting-edge R&D while meeting stringent compliance requirements such as FIPS enforcement, enhanced privilege management, PKI-based MFA, and UxS compliance for air-gapped networks. The position will involve close collaboration with researchers, program teams, and Division IT leadership to deliver secure, reliable, and scalable infrastructure solutions.

At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, you will directly contribute to national security and advanced technology development while working alongside world-class researchers. This role offers the opportunity to shape secure infrastructure that enables next-generation autonomous systems, robotics, and mission-critical computing capabilities-all while ensuring compliance in a challenging and rewarding technical environment.

Responsibilities

• Core Linux Administration: Maintain and optimize multi-user Linux systems, including resilient automated provisioning, configuration management, OS builds, patching, and performance tuning.
• Automation & Infrastructure: Develop and manage automation pipelines (Ansible, Puppet, etc.), virtualization (VMware, KVM), and cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Compliance Enforcement: Implement and support FIPS-compliant environments, privilege management, and PKI-based MFA for local and remote systems. Resolve PKI conflicts between LLAN PKI and DoD CAC environments.
• Secure Networking: Design, implement, and maintain secure, segmented, and air-gapped networks to meet DoD/UxS compliance for autonomous systems.
• Virtualized Development Environments: Provision secure, program-specific virtual desktops with rapid turnaround and customizable resources, including GPU-enabled builds.
• Containerization Services: Deploy and manage secure registries, container build pipelines, image scanning, and Kubernetes-based deployment targets.
• Specialized Testing Support: Maintain hardware emulation targets and support edge-deployable compute networks for field demonstrations and bench-level testing.
• Data Storage Management: Support large-scale object storage, SAN/NAS systems, backup/recovery, and high-volume research data workflows.
• Collaboration & Support: Serve as escalation for unresolved issues, assist staff with Linux problems, document processes, and communicate system updates.

Minimum Qualifications and Experience

Education/Training

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field; OR 6+ years of directly related experience in Linux systems engineering and administration.

Preferred Certifications:

• CompTIA Linux+ or LPIC-1/LPIC-2 (Linux Professional Institute Certification)
• Security+ (for cybersecurity fundamentals)
• Network+ (for networking basics)
• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) or Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) (for advanced Linux expertise)
• ITIL Foundation (for IT service management best practices)

Additional Training:

• Advanced Linux administration and shell scripting
• Virtualization and containerization technologies (e.g., VMware, Docker, Kubernetes)
• Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or similar) for hybrid environments
• Cybersecurity principles and compliance frameworks (NIST, DoD 8140 if applicable)
• High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies for Linux systems

Required Skills

• Expert-level Linux systems administration in multi-user, compliance-driven environments.
• Strong automation skills (Ansible, Puppet, SaltStack) and scripting (Bash, Python).
• Experience with virtualization platforms (VMware, KVM) including deployment, configuration, optimization, and automation of Linux-based workloads.
• Proven expertise in cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) covering compute, networking, storage, security, monitoring, and infrastructure automation.
• Proven experience implementing FIPS compliance, enhanced privilege management, and PKI-based MFA in mixed security environments.
• Networking expertise (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VPN, firewalls) with experience designing secure/air-gapped network architectures.
• Experience building and maintaining containerized environments (Docker, Podman, Kubernetes) and associated DevSecOps pipelines.
• Hands-on with SAN/NAS management, backup/recovery, and large-scale storage solutions.
• Ability to support high-compliance environments with strong security, auditing, and incident response processes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting robotics, embedded, and real-time control systems.
• Familiarity with hardware emulation targets for safe testing of compute platforms.
• Knowledge of edge-deployable compute networks, including portable, air-gapped server racks.
• Experience with monitoring/observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack).
• Experience with object storage-backed data lakes for large-scale R&D datasets.
• Prior involvement in vendor evaluation, selection, and compliance monitoring.
• Familiarity with real-time services for remote monitoring and autonomous system support.