Senior Cloud Ops Engineer

Simplesense builds, deploys, and sustains the Installation Resilience Platform that enables mission operators to rapidly adapt and respond. The Platform protects critical infrastructure from cyber attack while unlocking previously siloed information to monitor, diagnose, and improve response times to incidents. Our adversaries rapidly adopt the latest technology: we help defense users respond in kind.

Simplesense is a non-traditional defense contractor and prime on the Air Force's Installation Resilience Operations Command and Control (IROC) program, which is now expanding to five additional Air Force, Space Force, and Army installations from the one prototype installation, Tyndall Air Force Base.

Our team combines over 100 years of direct mission experience solving hard problems with 50 years technical expertise deploying DevSecOps, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, giving us a deep appreciation for our customers’ mission and end users’ priorities. We build for scale, architecting and prioritizing technical work for long term sustainability.

Senior Cloud Ops Engineer

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

About the Role

As the Senior Cloud Ops Engineer, you are responsible for leading the production reliability of our cloud-hosted applications. You will act as the technical owner for specific cloud systems, transitioning them from reactive support to a proactive model that prioritizes automation, system optimization, and stability. This position is a powerhouse focused on supporting application delivery and ensuring the cloud infrastructure is a "paved road" for our development teams. We recognize that talent comes in many forms. If you’re excited about this mission but your path hasn’t perfectly mirrored our requirements list, apply anyway. We value skills, grit, and potential.

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

• Locals: In person for sprint planning and quarterly planning meetings.
• Remote: Quarterly travel for team meetings.

What You’ll Do

• End-to-End System Ownership: Own the health and performance of assigned production systems, defining Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and building the monitoring/alerting necessary to meet them.
• Architect CI/CD & Automation: Design and maintain automated delivery pipelines (Infrastructure as Code) to ensure repeatable, secure feature deployments.
• Network Infrastructure Design: Manage scalable cloud network topologies, including transit gateways, VPCs, subnets, security groups, and route tables, ensuring low-latency and secure communication between distributed services.
• Eliminate Operational Toil: Proactively identify repetitive manual tasks and engineer automated solutions to prevent recurrence.
• Tier 3 Support & RCA: Act as the second escalation point for complex incidents, leading thorough root cause analysis (RCA) and implementing systemic, long-term fixes.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with development teams to translate software requirements into robust operational designs, effectively communicating design decisions and resulting system trade-offs.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

• Experience: 5+ years in cloud operations, systems administration, or DevOps, with a heavy focus on managing production workloads in mission-critical environments.
• Technical Mastery: Advanced proficiency in AWS (EC2, VPC, IAM), CloudFormation or Terraform, and CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions..
• Cloud Networking: Deep understanding of VPC design, subnetting, Route53, and VPN/Direct Connect configurations; experience troubleshooting complex connectivity issues across multi-account or hybrid on-prem/cloud environments.
• Software Development: Proficient in one or more software languages such as Node.js, Python, or Go.
• Observability: Strong experience with observability stacks (e.g., Splunk, DataDog, or CloudWatch) including logging, tracing, and metrics tuning.
• Travel: You will be required to travel quarterly to Product Increment planning.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and able to obtain a DoD NIPR network account and Common Access Card (CAC)
• Must have, or be able to obtain, a Secret Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Based in the Denver, CO, San Antonio, TX, or Brooklyn, NY area.
• Experience working within DoD, Air Force, or Federal contractor environments.
• AWS Certified SysOps Administrator or equivalent technical certification.

Our Culture

At Simplesense, we value high-trust autonomy. We look for people who can navigate ambiguity and are driven by the mission.

• Safety & Innovation: You embed security and reliability practices into daily work to drive continuous improvement and mitigate risk.
• People & Communication: You invite vigorous debate and offer "kindly blunt" feedback, always maintaining empathy and assuming noble intent.
• Integrity & Ethics: You build trust by honoring commitments, acting ethically, and resolving conflict through direct, honest communication.
• Strategic Problem Solving: You focus on high-priority issues to create documented, and scalable solutions—avoiding shortcuts.
• Agility: You move quickly to fix small problems, learn from the past, and pivot transparently when the mission requires it.

Compensation and Benefits

Pay Range: $140-$170k per year. Compensation is determined based on experience, skill level, and location. We review ranges regularly to ensure market competitiveness.

Competitive Benefits

• Equity
• Medical, Life, Short-Term Disability, and AD&D insurance
• Medical travel coverage
• Dental coverage
• Vision coverage
• 401k matching

Our Typical Hiring Process

• Find Your Fit: Your journey starts here. Explore and apply to our open positions to find the right role for your skills.
• Initial Chat: A brief call with our recruiting team to learn about your background and answer your initial questions about Simplesense.
• Values & Vision: A conversation with a hiring manager to discuss how your aspirations align with our mission and goals of the team.
• Show Your Skills: Complete a technical assessment that reflects the work you’d be doing.
• Team Interview: Interview with the team to discuss your experience and see if we’re a great match.
• Final Handshake: A final conversation to ensure we’ve answered all your questions before making a decision.
• Welcome to Simplesense!

Simplesense is an equal opportunity employer committed to a policy of merit-based employment. All employment decisions—including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, and termination—are made based on individual qualifications, performance, and business needs. We strictly prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of protected characteristics as recognized by federal, state, or local law. As a U.S. government contractor, Simplesense complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity laws, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA). If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the application or take part in the interview process, please contact People Operations at [email protected].