Senior Computer Systems Engineer/Architect at Peraton
Home, VA
$86,000–$138,000from the description
Jul 21, 2026
Home, VA
Jul 23, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on maintaining and operating virtualized infrastructure — primarily VMware, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Windows Server — within a federal government IT environment at HHS. Day-to-day work covers health checks, patch management, storage administration, system audits, and contributing to a longer-term shift from hybrid to cloud-only infrastructure. It suits an experienced systems engineer comfortable across VMware's broader product suite, Microsoft enterprise tools, and scripting with PowerShell.
Senior level · 5+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Secret clearance · Full-time
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 $128,188 (middle half $100,819–$156,589). 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 (8)
The role title says 'Engineer/Architect' but the day-to-day work is primarily operating and maintaining VMware, Linux, and Windows infrastructure in an enterprise environment — provisioning, patching, health checks, backup/recovery — which aligns more closely with systems administration (15-1244) than software development. 15-1299 is noted as a runner-up given the architect/solution-design framing.
Clearance: the JD states candidates 'must be able to obtain and maintain the required government security clearance' in a 'classified enterprise environment.' The specific level is not named; Secret is assumed as the minimum typical for a federal HHS IT support contract of this nature.
Experience requirement: the JD offers two paths — Bachelor's degree + 5 years, or 9 years with a high school diploma. Because equivalent experience is explicitly accepted in lieu of a degree, the degree requirement is set to None. The overall years minimum reflects the lower bound (5 years with a degree).
The role is primarily telework but requires occasional onsite presence in Washington, DC and Ashburn, VA; it is not fully remote.
VMware vRealize and vCenter appear in both the Required and Desired Qualifications sections. They are captured as required based on their explicit listing under Required Qualifications; the Desired section entries (VCSA, datastore/network management) are marked preferred.
PIV-D (Personal Identity Verification – Derived) is listed as a VMware Horizon sub-feature context item, not a standalone technology skill; it is subsumed under the VMware Horizon skill.
Ignored 3 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): VMware Site Recovery Manager, Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, VMware vCenter Server Appliance.
Requires a 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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