{"id":1980350,"url":"https://alion.io/job/sanmar-principal-systems-engineer","title":"Principal Systems Engineer","company":{"id":47087,"name":"SanMar","domain":"sanmar.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/sanmar","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"DevOps","role_family":"DevOps","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Issaquah, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":135000,"max":200000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":200000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Active Directory","optional":false},{"name":"Ansible","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Azure DevOps","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Configuration Management","optional":false},{"name":"DHCP","optional":false},{"name":"DNS","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","optional":false},{"name":"PKI","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"VMWare","optional":false},{"name":"Windows Server","optional":false},{"name":"Bash","optional":true},{"name":"PowerShell","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Red Hat","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-06T22:21:01Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-06","last_verified_at":"2026-10-11T22:58:38Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"At SanMar, the work you do makes a difference.\nWhat's the Short Version?\nThe Principal Systems Engineer owns the architecture and continuous improvement of SanMar's Compute platform: the servers, operating systems, virtualization, and cloud infrastructure that every SanMar application runs on. This is a mixed stack role by design. Windows Server, Linux, VMware, and Microsoft Azure are treated as one platform rather than four specialties, and a growing share of the work is codifying that platform in Terraform and pipelines rather than building it by hand. The Principal Systems Engineer sets compute standards and reference architectures, leads modernization, and lifecycle work across the on premises and Azure environment, and is the highest level technical resource when something complex breaks.\nWhat Will You Be Doing?\nOwn the architecture, standards, and reference designs for SanMar's Compute platform across Windows Server, Linux, VMware, and Microsoft Azure.\nDesign, build, and operate infrastructure in Microsoft Azure, including landing zones, subscription and resource organization, RBAC, network integration, and cost and capacity management.\nCodify infrastructure as code in Terraform and configuration management in Ansible, delivered through Azure DevOps pipelines with version controlled, peer reviewed changes in Azure Repos, and automated security and compliance checks.\nArchitect and administer Windows Server and directory services at scale, including Active Directory, Entra ID, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, PKI, and failover clustering.\nEngineer and operate Linux as a first class platform, including build standards, configuration management, patching, hardening, and performance tuning.\nArchitect and operate the VMware estate, including vSphere, vCenter, ESXi, and vSAN, with capacity planning, version lifecycle, and platform hardening.\nOwn the container platform, including image supply chain, registry, orchestration, and the Compute, storage, and networking the containers depend on.\nLead the hybrid cloud direction for Compute: what runs on premises, what moves to Azure, and how identity, backup, and recovery stay consistent across both.\nDefine and drive the server, operating system, and hypervisor lifecycle, including patch and firmware strategy, hardware refresh, and end of support remediation.\nDrive observability, monitoring, alerting, backup, and disaster recovery across every Compute platform, including regular recovery testing rather than assumed recoverability.\nLead complex infrastructure projects end to end, from requirements through implementation, stabilization, and post launch review.\nLead major incident response and postmortems, and make sure the resulting platform improvements are documented and actually implemented.\nEvaluate and select platform technologies, and own the technical side of the relationship with Compute platform vendors.\nDevelop architecture documentation, platform runbooks, and knowledge transfer material that raises the capability of the whole team.\nMentor Systems Engineers at every level, and set the technical bar through design review and code review.\nCommunicate technical risk, architectural decisions, and project status clearly to engineering teams and IT leadership.\nPerform other duties as assigned.\nComply with all policies and standards.\nWhat Are We Looking For?\nBachelor's Degree Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related discipline, a relevant certification, or equivalent practical experience.\n10+ years of hands on enterprise infrastructure experience, or an equivalent combination of education, certification, and hands on experience.\nDeep expertise in at least two of the following, and working proficiency in the rest: Windows Server and directory services, Linux, VMware virtualization, and Microsoft Azure.\nDemonstrated experience designing and operating infrastructure in Microsoft Azure, including identity, networking, and governance.\nHands on experience building infrastructure as code with Terraform, and configuration management with Ansible or equivalent.\nExperience delivering infrastructure through CI/CD pipelines with version control, peer review, and automated policy or security checks. Azure DevOps and Azure Repos experience is a plus.\nStrong automation and scripting ability, for example PowerShell, Bash, or Python.\nExperience running a container platform in production, including registry, orchestration, and the infrastructure underneath it.\nExperience with enterprise storage and the protocols behind it, such as SAN, NAS, vSAN, iSCSI, NFS, and SMB.\nA track record of infrastructure architecture and modernization work, not only operating what already exists.\nDemonstrated experience raising the capability of the engineers around you through mentoring, design review, and documentation.\nRelevant certifications are a plus, for example Microsoft Azure (AZ-104, AZ-305), VMware VCP or VCAP, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, or Red Hat RHCSA or RHCE.\nMust have excellent organizational, interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills, as well as the ability to explain complex technical issues to a non-technical audience.\nComfortable making decisions with incomplete information and owning the outcome.\nOccasionally will be required to work nights, weekends, or holidays to make system level changes outside of production hours.\nParticipate in an on-call rotation, responding to emergency issue resolution after hours.\nWhat's Our Offer?\nSalary Range: You`ll earn between $135,000 - $200,000 annually, depending on experience.\nBonus: You`ll be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus up to 15% of base salary.\nPaid Time Off: You`ll accrue paid time off on a bi-weekly basis based on hours worked up to 152 hours per year to start. Employees also receive 8 paid holidays and 1 paid family day off.\nAdditional Benefits:\nComprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits\n401k plan and matches $1 for $1 up to 4% of earnings, matched & vested at every pay cycle\nLife insurance\nShort/long-term disability coverage\nPaid maternity/paternity leave\nPet insurance\nWhat Should You Expect?\nHybrid: SanMar's Eastpointe office is located in Issaquah, WA in the Seattle metropolitan area. Employees are required to work in our offices Tuesday through Thursday each week and additional days may be added based on business needs. Our standard working hours are 8:00-5:00 PST. Periodic travel may be required. The employee is regularly required to sit for extended periods while working on a computer and participating in virtual and in-person meetings. Frequent use of hands for keyboarding and standard office equipment is required. Occasional standing, walking, and reaching may be needed to attend meetings or collaborate in an office setting. The role requires the ability to perform close visual work on a computer for extended periods. The employee may occasionally lift and/or move up to 10-15 pounds. Reasonable accommodations may be available to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential job functions.\nWhy Work at SanMar?\nOur people are at the heart of everything we do. They bring their talent, passion and dedication to work with them every day. Their hard work inspires us and gives us purpose. We love working here together.\nWhether you work in our headquarters, from your home or in one of our distribution centers across North America, we believe that investing in you is just the right thing to do. Our comprehensive benefits package is designed to support your health and well-being, life balance, career growth and (eventually) retirement.\nSanMar works with brands you already know, like Nike, The North Face and Brooks Brothers, as well as providing industry-leading private label apparel and accessories. Our people come to work excited to do their part, providing clothing that helps people feel that they’re a part of something special.\nHere’s your chance to be a part of this story. If you’re ready to work in a place where your participation matters and your growth is a priority, we’re ready for you.\nSanMar is an Equal Opportunity Employer\nWhoever you are, wherever you’re from, whoever you love or follow in faith, whatever your disability or superpower status, whichever ethnicity or gender you identify with, you are welcome at SanMar.\nSanMar participates in E-Verify.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8340,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Life insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-06T23:17:00Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.898,"p_room":1,"age_days":3,"expected_fill_days":15,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":200000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/sanmar-principal-systems-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/sanmar-principal-systems-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-12T02:12:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3146,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-13T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":47087},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=47087"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsanmar-principal-systems-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fsanmar-principal-systems-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fsanmar-principal-systems-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/sanmar-principal-systems-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsanmar-principal-systems-engineer"}]}