Senior Systems Engineer Manager (Service Operations Team Lead) at Peraton
Albuquerque, NM
$135,000–$216,000from the description
Jul 1, 2026
Albuquerque, NM
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A team lead role overseeing all server and systems infrastructure for a federal nuclear security program. Day-to-day work spans managing classified and unclassified Windows and Linux server environments, VMware virtualization, Active Directory, patch and vulnerability management, and compliance with federal cybersecurity frameworks. The role also involves mentoring junior engineers and interfacing with government stakeholders. Suits an experienced systems engineer with a current DOE Q or Top Secret clearance.
Senior level · 12+ years · Albuquerque, NM · Top Secret clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $88,443 (middle half $74,299–$105,653). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The role title includes 'Manager' and 'Team Lead', and the JD explicitly calls for leading, mentoring, and managing junior staff — placing it genuinely between a hands-on senior systems administrator (15-1244) and a people/program manager (11-3021). The primary day-to-day work described is hands-on server and systems infrastructure administration, so 15-1244 is the primary classification, with 11-3021 as a meaningful runner-up.
The minimum education requirement is a high school diploma with 12 years of experience; a bachelor's or master's degree is listed only under Preferred Qualifications, so the degree requirement is set to None.
The JD requires an active DOE Q Clearance or equivalent Top Secret clearance. Q Clearance is the DOE equivalent of TS; TopSecret is used here as the closest standard mapping. The posting also mentions eligibility for SCI and SAP access but does not gate on holding an active TS/SCI, so TopSecret (not TopSecretSci) is used.
The 12-year total experience figure comes from the basic qualifications ('High school diploma with 12 years of experience'). The separate '3 years of recent experience as a Senior Systems Administrator within the last 5 years' is a recency/role-level qualifier, not an additive total.
PowerShell is listed as the primary scripting language with Python and Bash as named alternatives in the same requirement; Ansible is listed as the primary automation platform with Terraform and Puppet as named alternatives.
AIOps and AI-enabled operations experience appears in the required qualifications section but is framed as 'experience implementing' rather than a hard named-tool gate; it is retained as a preferred skill given its vague, non-tool-specific framing.
Certifications listed under Preferred Qualifications (Security+, CISSP, CASP+, CAP, Azure certs, VMware certs, cloud certs) are all marked preferred. ITIL v4 Foundation is explicitly called a 'Required Certification' and is marked as a hard gate.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): NIST SP 800-53.
Requires a Top Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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