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ASCENDING LLC

SME - Observability, ELK Stack & Monitoring Engineer

ASCENDING LLC, Fairfax, Virginia, United States, 22032

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Senior Observability Engineer (SME)

Long-term contract - 2+ years

100% remote in the continental US Job Description:

Our client's Enterprise Observability team is looking for a senior-level

ELK Stack Subject Matter Expert (SME) . The team is responsible for enterprise infrastructure, application, and network observability, with a primary focus on log management and metrics. The selected candidate will be joining a team of skilled engineers with a broad background in enterprise observability. Your Impact:

As an

ELK Stack Engineer , this role is focused on maintaining the reliability, scalability, and availability of our enterprise

Elastic Stack

solution. This platform is used for log management, metrics, and observability. The role heavily utilizes automation with tools like

Terraform

and

Ansible

and requires the candidate to maintain performance KPIs and define SLOs for the platform. Responsibilities:

Maintain and deploy monitoring and alerting systems within the

ELK Stack . Design, configure, and maintain our large-scale log aggregation solution using Elasticsearch and Logstash. Set up and manage data ingestion pipelines and transformations using tools like

Filebeat ,

Logstash , and/or Fluentd/Fluentbit. Embrace the mindset of "automate any task" to improve efficiency. Build and maintain robust monitoring systems using

Elasticsearch ,

Kibana , and

Beats

to proactively detect potential issues and trigger timely alerts. Maintain associated documentation as it applies to our audit and certification requirements. Participate in troubleshooting, capacity planning, and performance analysis activities related to the

ELK Stack . Research new observability requirements and, in many cases, write code to implement them. Possess strong expertise in setting up monitoring policies, rules, and templates, and writing scripts to accomplish observability requirements. What you need to succeed:

BS/MS in CS/Engineering or equivalent, OR 5+ years of experience. 4+ years of experience working directly with the ELK Stack

as either an Admin, SME, or Architect. Hands-on experience with designing data pipelines using

Logstash , and/or Fluentd/Fluentbit. Expert-level knowledge of the

ELK Stack

(on-prem and cloud), including best practices related to performance, security, and component setup ( Elasticsearch ,

Logstash ,

Kibana ,

Beats ). Fluent in writing scripts in languages like

Python

and (Bash or PowerShell) to automate tasks. Experience in

Terraform

and

Ansible , including syntax, best practices, and managing complex configurations to build and manage infrastructure and applications. Very good working knowledge of Linux OS. Highly self-motivated and directed. Good analytical and problem-solving/troubleshooting abilities.