Red Team Systems Administrator (US)

About VulnCheck

VulnCheck is transforming vulnerability intelligence by helping security teams act faster and with more confidence. Our platform delivers early, high-quality exploit intelligence, deep asset correlation, and contextual insights to help organizations stay ahead of emerging threats.

About the Role

VulnCheck is looking for a Red Team Systems Administrator / Lab Manager to build, maintain, and operate the lab infrastructure that supports our vulnerability research team. This role is responsible for standing up and managing a research environment that includes networking equipment, IoT / OT devices, and the supporting compute, storage, and network infrastructure our researchers depend on to discover, analyze, and validate vulnerabilities.

You'll work closely with our exploit developers and threat researchers to ensure they have reliable, secure, and reproducible environments for testing against real-world hardware and software. The lab is central to VulnCheck's mission — our researchers need to move fast, and the infrastructure has to keep up. While this is a hybrid role, the position requires regular onsite management of physical lab equipment in the Fort Meade, MD area. 

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain the physical and virtual lab infrastructure used by VulnCheck's vulnerability research team.
• Procure, configure, and manage networking equipment (routers, switches, firewalls, wireless access points) and IoT / OT devices used for security research and exploit validation.
• Manage lab network architecture — including segmentation, VLANs, out-of-band management, and isolated test environments to safely run exploit code against live devices.
• Administer Linux and Windows servers, hypervisors, and virtualization platforms (e.g., VMware, Proxmox, KVM) that host vulnerable software and services for testing.
• Maintain firmware libraries and device inventories, ensuring researchers have access to specific hardware and software versions needed for vulnerability analysis.
• Provide remote access infrastructure (VPN, jump hosts, remote console access) so distributed team members can interact with physical lab equipment.
• Automate environment provisioning, configuration management, and lab reset workflows using tools such as Ansible, Terraform, or similar.
• Monitor lab systems for availability, performance, and security — and respond to issues promptly.
• Collaborate with researchers to understand upcoming research targets and proactively prepare the lab environments they need.
• Manage vendor relationships for hardware procurement, warranties, and RMA processes.
• Document lab architecture, procedures, and runbooks to ensure operational continuity.

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of experience in systems administration, lab operations, or infrastructure engineering.
• Strong hands-on experience with Linux system administration (Ubuntu, CentOS/RHEL, or similar).
• Solid networking fundamentals — TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, firewall configuration, and routing.
• Experience managing and configuring networking equipment (Cisco, Juniper, MikroTik, etc).
• Familiarity with IoT devices and embedded systems — comfortable working with serial consoles, JTAG, firmware flashing, and device provisioning.
• Familiarity with OT/ICS devices and protocols is a huge plus.
• Experience with virtualization and containerization technologies (VMware, Proxmox, KVM, Docker).
• Experience with configuration management and infrastructure-as-code tools (Ansible, Terraform, or similar).
• Ability to work independently and manage priorities across multiple concurrent research efforts.
• Strong documentation habits and clear written communication.
• Scripting skills in Python, Bash, or Go for automating lab workflows; familiarity with Go is a plus. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience using Claude or other AI models for task automation. 
• Prior experience supporting a security research, penetration testing, or red team lab environment.
• Prior cybersecurity work experience (at a vendor or in government).