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Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems. The Senior IT Systems Engineer - Platform will be based onsite at the Albuquerque facility and will be responsible for designing, implementing, and operating platform and operating system environments across the organization.
Key responsibilities include enabling Rocket Lab engineers globally by leveraging platform technology to efficiently design, manufacture, and manage next-generation rockets and space systems. The role provides subject matter expertise and guidance to deliver and support IT systems through efficient management of platform infrastructure and project delivery. You will lead upgrades, maintenance activities, and continuous improvement initiatives to provide reliable and secure infrastructure.
The engineer will lead project planning and deployment for platform infrastructure projects including VMware, Kubernetes, Linux, and Windows environments in support of annual operating plan goals. A critical focus is championing configuration management through implementation of standards for deployment and management of different platforms via automation tools like Ansible. This ensures compliance with Rocket Lab policies and cybersecurity standards, improves system reliability, maintains high availability and disaster recovery, simplifies environment management, establishes hardened system baselines, automates build and deployment processes, and provides comprehensive documentation and reporting.
Required qualifications include 5+ years of IT experience with a bachelor's degree (or 9+ years equivalent experience), 3+ years in a platform-focused technology role, in-depth Ansible experience, and in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes, VMware, Linux configuration management, automation, and/or infrastructure as code. Nice-to-have qualifications include scripting and infrastructure-as-code experience, security frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST 800-171), network and security product support, advanced problem-solving skills, and containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
The role reports to the Team Lead - IT Infrastructure Manager and may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, and computer work with occasional exposure to moderate noise, dust, and fumes in production areas.
