Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

Location: Denver, CO (Hybrid) | San Antonio, TX (Hybrid) | Brooklyn, NY (Hybrid) | Remote (US-Based)

Department: Engineering

About Simplesense

Simplesense keeps military installations mission-ready. The infrastructure their operations depend on — power, water, fuel, facilities, security, and communications — runs continuously, often under strain. When it fails without warning, mission readiness is at risk, and the people who run these installations need to see what’s happening in time to act. That’s the foundation of Continuous Mission Assurance.

We securely integrate Operational Technology and Control Systems (OT/CS) from the building edge to the cloud, applying Zero Trust principles to protect critical infrastructure from cyber and physical threats. By unlocking previously siloed data, we put timely awareness in front of the decision-makers who need it. As prime on the Air Force’s Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, we hold a continuous Authority to Operate (ATO) and have proven the capability at scale at Tyndall Air Force Base. That work is now expanding across the Air Force, Space Force, and Army.

Our team pairs over a century of boots-on-the-ground mission experience with deep technical expertise across DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. We engineer resilient infrastructure — the software, integration, and operational backbone behind it — for the operators who depend on it in the field. Persistent resilience, built for the mission.

About the Role

As our Senior Cloud Operations Engineer, you will play a critical role in the operational excellence of our hybrid deployments by managing an end-to-end ETL pipeline that bridges the gap from on-premise Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems to our advanced AWS cloud environment. You will oversee edge and cloud operations as part of the Data Insights team to ensure our platform remains resilient, secure, and ready for the mission.

Work Model: We prioritize candidates in the Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, and Brooklyn, NY areas, but we are open to exceptional remote talent.

• Locals: 2 days/week onsite for collaborative workspace time.
• Remote: Quarterly travel to hub locations for team syncs and alignment.

Our Performance Culture

We measure performance across two key dimensions: How you perform your role (Our Core Values) and What your role entails (Your Execution).

How You’ll Work — Our Core Values

At Simplesense, we value high-trust autonomy. We look for builders who can comfortably navigate ambiguity and are deeply driven by our shared national security mission.

• People Always – Win as One Team: We foster a culture of psychological safety and mutual support. We operate as an integrated team where we assume noble intent as our default setting, ensuring that even the toughest feedback is rooted in trust. We trade our silos for a shared mission because collective impact always outweighs individual achievement.
• Empathize – Obsess Over the Customer: We don't just solve technical problems; we empathize and advocate for the operators using our products. We look beyond the surface to build what our customers—both internal and external—actually need to succeed, not just what they asked for.
• Focus – Ruthlessly Prioritize with Urgency: We focus on the highest-impact work and ruthlessly say no to distractions. We build resilient systems so that our solutions can repeat and scale under pressure.
• Let’s Go – Catalyze the Change You Seek: We don't wait for the industry to change; we drive it. We seek to understand why things are the way they are, but we never use “the way it’s always been” as an excuse. We aren't afraid to change course when the data or our mission demands it.

What You’ll Do

• Maintain, optimize, and scale our hybrid Kubernetes (RKE2) edge clusters to ensure maximum uptime, smooth local data extraction, and seamless scaling across customer facilities.
• Remediate and manage container security and base image vulnerabilities to harden our edge-to-cloud infrastructure against security threats and maintain strict compliance standards.
• Define, implement, and monitor pipeline Service Level Indicators and Service Level Objectives within Splunk to proactively identify bottlenecks and guarantee the health, freshness, and availability of our hybrid data streams.
• Integrate and automate testing, security scanning, and deployment stages into GitHub Actions to increase deployment velocity, eliminate manual errors, and shorten feedback loops.
• Architect, build, and deploy robust AWS CloudFormation stacks to provide highly available, repeatable, and scalable cloud database and data ingestion infrastructure.
• Lead and execute the technical configuration and validation of on-premise infrastructure and logical replication pipelines to accelerate the onboarding timeline and ensure zero data loss when standing up new customer facilities.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

• Experience:
• 5+ years of experience in a DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering role managing production-grade infrastructure.
• Technical Skills: 
• Strong experience managing Kubernetes environments (bonus points for edge/on-prem distributions like RKE2 or Rancher) and configuration management using Kustomize.
• Deep familiarity with AWS services, specifically infrastructure provisioning via CloudFormation and managing data/compute resources (EC2, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, Firehose).
• Hands-on experience configuring log aggregation and metrics dashboards using Splunk, Cloudwatch, or similar..
• Practical experience with container security scanning, patching, and maintaining a secure software supply chain.
• Proficiency in Python, NodeJS, or Ansible to write automation scripts or troubleshoot pipeline friction.
• Understanding of networking concepts required to support hybrid environments (e.g., local APIs connecting to OT systems, data replication to the cloud).
• Domain Knowledge:
• Demonstrated understanding of managing hybrid edge-to-cloud architectures, with a strong understanding of how to securely automate and monitor data pipelines that bridge physical Operational Technology (OT) facilities with scalable AWS cloud environments
• Travel: Ability to travel for a full week quarterly for team planning and client Program Management Reviews (PMRs).
• Compliance: Must be a U.S. Citizen and capable of obtaining a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC).
• Security Clearance: Must have, or be able to obtain, a DoD Secret Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strongly prefer candidates residing in the Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, or Brooklyn, NY metro areas.
• Prior experience working within DoD, Air Force, Space Force, or fast-paced Federal contractor/dual-use startup environments.
• Relevant technical certifications: Current DoD 8140 Intermediate or Advanced Foundational Qualification or ability to obtain within 90 days of hire
• Experience in a DevOps, SRE, or Systems Engineering role managing production-grade infrastructure.

What Success Looks Like (First 90 Days)

• 30 Days: Successfully onboard, gain a deep understanding of our hybrid edge-to-cloud architecture, and take over routine patching and maintenance of the existing Kubernetes clusters.
• 60 Days: Enhance our GitHub Actions and CloudFormation pipelines with improved automation, while configuring and standing up the infrastructure for your first new customer facility deployment.
• 90 Days: Establish and instrument our core pipeline Service Level Objectives in Splunk, proactively identifying and optimizing data latency or reliability bottlenecks across the hybrid ecosystem.

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: $155,000 - $195,000 per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.