> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Forward Deployed Infrastructure Engineer (TS/SCI Clearance Required)

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/ff67fdc057ed9c55

Lumbra posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in Arlington, VA, at $200,000–$300,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Own onsite deployment and operations for an agentic infrastructure harness across commercial cloud, on-prem cloud, and fully air-gapped classified environments. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Lumbra](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/lumbra)

Posted Jun 23, 2026 by Lumbra · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$200,000–$300,000** + equity Arlington, VA On-site Full-time

Own onsite deployment and operations for an agentic infrastructure harness across commercial cloud, on-prem cloud, and fully air-gapped classified environments.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Fff67fdc057ed9c55&placement=top)
- [View posting at Lumbra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/lumbra/f70d53a7-6d7c-42e5-8cbb-c5c51ddc4520/application)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$200K–$300K Above the median

Midpoint $250K · median $190K

This job $200K to $300K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Configuration only

- **Builds for**: Internal teams

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Arlington, VA. Could you work there?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Arlington, VA

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Pay**:

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## The job description from Lumbra

Posted by Lumbra on Jun 23, 2026

### About the Role

Lumbra is building Nebula, an agentic harness deployed across commercial cloud, on-prem cloud (AWS GovCloud, C2S, or equivalent), and fully air-gapped classified environments. We're looking for a cleared infrastructure engineer to own the onsite deployment pipeline and ensure the harness runs reliably across this spectrum, from managed Kubernetes with limited connectivity to standalone clusters with no internet access at all.

### This role requires an active U.S. security clearance (TS/SCI).

### What You'll Own

- Own the **air-gapped deployment pipeline** end to end: transferring source code, charts, and configuration to disconnected environments, then building and deploying container images onsite. You need deep experience operating where nothing can be pulled from the internet.
- Author and maintain **onsite Helm configurations** that adapt to each deployment target, whether that means leveraging managed services in an on-prem cloud or replacing them with Kubernetes-native alternatives on standalone clusters. Strong Helm skills and an understanding of environment-specific translation are essential.
- Deploy and operate **stateful infrastructure services** (databases, caching, workflow orchestration, identity, object storage) on bare Kubernetes without managed cloud backends. Comfort with stateful workloads in constrained environments is a must.
- Own the onsite **cluster management and delivery toolchain** including Rancher for Kubernetes lifecycle management, ArgoCD for GitOps-based deployments, and Harbor as the container registry. Experience operating these tools in disconnected environments is essential.
- Manage the **secrets lifecycle** in classified environments, ensuring all credentials are generated fresh onsite with no secrets transferred on physical media. Rigorous security practices and familiarity with classified handling procedures are required.
- Own **PKI and certificate management** across onsite deployments: CA hierarchies, certificate issuance and rotation, mTLS between services, and trust chain validation in environments where external certificate authorities are unavailable. A fundamental understanding of public key infrastructure is essential.
- Build and maintain **OCI-compliant container build pipelines** (Podman, Buildah) for environments where Docker is not available. Experience with rootless, hardened container tooling is needed.
- Troubleshoot Kubernetes issues in environments with **no external access**: crashed pods, failed migrations, certificate errors, storage problems, all without pulling a debug image or searching the internet. Deep Kubernetes internals knowledge and self-sufficiency are essential.
- Profile and optimize **system performance in constrained environments**: resource utilization, pod scheduling, storage I/O, and network throughput on clusters where you can't simply scale up. Every millisecond and megabyte matters when hardware is fixed and access is limited.
- Ensure **deployment parity** between cloud and onsite by validating that health checks, resource limits, and service configurations stay aligned across both tracks. Own the onsite **monitoring architecture** that gives the team high visibility into system health, resource utilization, and service status across environments. You'll work closely with the cloud infrastructure team to prevent drift.
- Author and maintain **database operations tooling** (migrations, backup/restore, schema management) that works reliably in disconnected environments using Kubernetes Job templates.
- Write deployment procedures, runbooks, and troubleshooting guides that **onsite operators can follow independently**. Clear technical writing for classified operational contexts is important.

### Preferred Qualifications

- Experience operating **Kubernetes across classified environments**: on-prem cloud (GovCloud, C2S), standalone clusters, or SCIF environments at IL4/IL5/IL6
- Experience with **Rancher**, **ArgoCD**, and **Harbor** in air-gapped or restricted environments
- Prior work with **Podman** and **Buildah** for rootless container builds in restricted environments
- Experience with **identity provider deployment** (Keycloak or similar) without cloud backends
- Background in **workflow orchestration operations** (Temporal or similar), especially schema bootstrapping and upgrades without internet access
- Familiarity with DoD-hardened base images, or STIG compliance
- Experience authoring **STIGs, SSPs, or ATO documentation** for classified deployments
- Prior work with **cross-domain solutions** or data transfer procedures between classification levels

### Compensation

The base salary range for this role is **$200,000 to $300,000**, plus equity and benefits. Where an offer lands depends on scope, autonomy, and technical capability, which we assess through the interview process rather than by years or title. Our ranges are a real guide, and we are flexible for the right person: if your experience clearly exceeds this role's scope, we will consider you at a higher level, with that level's range. Base salary is one part of total compensation, alongside equity and the benefits below. **What We Offer**

### What We Offer

- **Health, dental, and vision insurance.** 99% of your premiums covered, and 100% of your dependents' premiums.
- **Optional HSA plan.** Lower premium, HSA eligible, fully portable, self directed or managed.
- **Health Reimbursement Account** for qualified healthcare expenses.
- **Life insurance** of $150,000 plus AD&D, 100% company paid.
- **401(k) with a 100% match on the first 6%, immediately vested.** No cliff, no waiting period. Yours from day one.
- **Wellhub Gold.** Everything from Gold's Gym to Lifetime, fully covered, plus [solidcore], F45, and hundreds of other studios.
- **Unlimited PTO.** Real time off, not accrual based. Take what you need, no counting required.
- **Every federal holiday**, plus additional paid days off over the winter break.
- **Supportive leave of absence program**, including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave.
- **Breakfast, lunch, and endless snacks** every day you are in the office.

### Pre-tax commuter benefits.

- **Company phone plan.** A new iPhone, fully company paid.

[View posting at Lumbra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/lumbra/f70d53a7-6d7c-42e5-8cbb-c5c51ddc4520/application)

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