Lead Site Reliability Engineer

Hybrid role: on-site in Chantilly, VA; off-site from home or Herndon, VA office. Full-time, salaried position.

About the role

We're looking for a Lead Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to provide technical leadership and help guide the execution of work across our SRE team. This is a hands-on engineering role with an emphasis on coaching other engineers, translating technical objectives into actionable work, and maintaining high standards for reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence. You'll work alongside the team to maintain and improve our software products and platforms across ILS and client environments. You'll help engineers develop their technical capabilities, make sound implementation decisions, and deliver solutions using automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, and modern engineering practices. Success in this role means not only solving complex technical problems yourself, but also helping the broader team become more capable, effective, and independent.

This is a full-time staff role at ILS, providing clients with commercial capabilities in their private environments — not a billable "butt-in-seat" contracting role, no timecards, and no checklist of oddly specific requirements for contract upgrades. It's a high-impact role where success enables missions and unlocks commercial incentives, offering an opportunity to build using transferable, state-of-the-industry engineering patterns and skills.

Responsibilities

• Maintain uptime, performance, and security of ILS products across internal and client environments
• Leverage automation and Infrastructure-as-Code to manage and scale infrastructure
• Respond to and resolve support requests during assigned shifts, escalating as needed to meet SLAs
• Contribute to development of SRE Playbooks to automate avoidance, detection, or remediation of operational issues
• Perform code review for quality and security purposes
• Support accreditation and compliance initiatives
• Drive platform capability enhancements and other technical development tasks

Requirements

Technical stack includes Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, with custom software generally written in Go or Python. Prior experience with every technology is not required; we value engineers who can learn, adapt, and apply strong engineering fundamentals to new problems.

• Strong foundation in automation, DevOps, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and production operations
• Ability to break complex technical problems into manageable work suitable for engineers with different experience levels
• Experience mentoring other engineers, providing constructive technical feedback, and helping teammates develop their capabilities
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills, including guiding investigations into unfamiliar or complex failures
• Sound engineering judgment when evaluating technical approaches, implementation risks, and operational tradeoffs
• Experience reviewing technical implementations for correctness, maintainability, reliability, and security
• Clear communication skills and ability to coordinate technical work across a team

Benefits

• Company 401(k) contribution: 10% of salary, immediate vest, no strings
• $1,800 annual HSA contribution
• Fully paid health, dental, and vision insurance premiums for you and your family
• Generous time off, 10 company holidays, and additional company down days announced each year
• Cash incentive plans based on role-related metrics and project objectives

Schedule

• 24/7 production services: SREs rotate duty shifts during business hours at client sites
• After-hours coverage is shared across the team and is on-call (not on-site)
• When not on SRE duty, work remotely with a flexible schedule
• Team meetings (virtual or in-person) held during standard business hours and scheduled in advance

Security Requirements

This role requires an active US Government security clearance. Candidates must comply with all related obligations and procedural requirements.