Senior Principal Help Desk Tier 3

Title: Sr. Principal Help Desk Tier3 Technician

Location: SAN DIEGO, CA, United States

Schedule: Full-time

Shift: Day Job

Travel: Yes, 10 % of the time

Clearance Required: Top Secret;
Able to obtain TS/SCI with Poly

SAIC is seeking a Sr. Principal Help Desk Tier3 Technician responsible for the most complex and critical technical issues supporting the Joint Fires Network program. Responsibilities include identifying and resolving complex issues within the system, collaborating directly with internal developers to fix bugs/issues, and developing standard operations procedures for training Tier 1 & 2 support teams and end‑user customers. This position is onsite in San Diego, CA.

• Work directly with customers in a technical role.
• Responsible for asset installation/configuration, operation and maintenance of systems, hardware, software and related infrastructure.
• Configure and manage operating systems (Windows and Linux), applications (commercial and government), networks (IPs, subnets, etc.) and network equipment (switches).
• Configure and manage DOD and IC standard distributed authentication services.
• Serve as the final point of internal escalation for all technical support issues, performing in‑depth analysis of complex hardware, software, server, and network‑related problems.
• Develop, document, and maintain comprehensive knowledge base articles, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and technical guides for Tier 1 and Tier 2 teams to resolve common issues and comply with government policies.
• Participate in or lead IT projects, including system upgrades, new software deployments, and infrastructure migrations.
• Perform regular file archival and purge, as necessary.
• Create, change and delete user accounts per request.
• Repair and recover from hardware or software failures for multiple sites.
• Establish, document, and monitor the government’s cyber security program implementation plan.
• Develop and maintain scripts (e.g., using Bash, Python, or Perl) to automate routine tasks, streamline processes, and improve the efficiency of the support team.
• Work with internal development teams to report and resolve bugs, request feature enhancements, and address product‑related issues on Linux platforms.
• Contribute technical content and tutorials to product documentation.
• Familiarity with distributed systems such as Hadoop, HBase/Accumulo, Spark and Kafka.
• Experience with Puppet, Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Power Shell, and Python tools.
• Strong understanding of security concepts, best practices and how to apply them (Secure Shell, public key encryption, access credentials, certificates, TLS, data encryption) per Department of Defense and Intelligence Community policies/processes.

• Highly motivated.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Ability to dynamically prioritize tasks.
• Organized with attention to detail and accuracy.

• CONUS/OCONUS travel less than 10 % of the time.
• Ability to use a personal computer, keyboard and mouse consistently.
• Operates standard computer‑based business tools (e.g., Microsoft Word and Excel) effectively with a high degree of competency.
• Ability to capture essential procedural instructions for tasks in a repeatable manner.

• Demonstrates excellent clear and concise verbal communication skills.
• Active communicator—giving full attention to others, asking questions when appropriate.

• Typical education and experience:
  Bachelors and 14 years or more of related experience;
  Master’s and 12 years or more;
  PhD or JD and 9 years or more.
• Certifications:
  
  IAT Level 1 (CompTIA Security+ and OS/Computing Environment certification).
• U.S. Citizenship and an active Top Secret clearance with the ability to obtain TS/SCI CI Poly.
• 5+ years of direct experience with implementation and understanding of engineering principles.
• 5‑7 years of progressive IT support experience, with 2‑3 years in a Tier 2 or similar role focused on Linux environments.
• Experience maintaining, configuring, operating and troubleshooting complex electronic computer interface systems and network equipment.
• Past experience administering server‑side technology and networked computing…