Active Directory / Identity Engineer (Senior)

Job description

Computer World Services, Corp. (CWS) seeks a Senior Active Directory / Identity Engineer to own and sustain the Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) environment supporting the USMEPCOM ENLIST program. This senior engineering position manages AD objects, organizational units, Group Policy Objects (GPOs), trusts, replication, schema governance, delegated permissions, domain services, and recovery capabilities. The engineer also evaluates and tests approved Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) capabilities, including potential Okta integrations. These modernization activities complement, not replace, the need for direct, hands-on AD DS engineering expertise. The engineer works closely with cybersecurity, Service Desk, systems, cloud, network, application, COOP, and Government identity stakeholders. ### Key Tasks & Responsibilities - Serve as senior technical owner for the USMEPCOM AD DS environment, maintaining the domain, OU, site, trust, and Group Policy plans and related architecture documentation. - Install, configure, maintain, troubleshoot, and recover AD DS, and create, modify, disable, and delete authorized users, computers, groups, service accounts, and other directory objects. - Design and maintain the OU structure, and manage OU permissions and delegated administration using least-privilege principles, correcting excessive or conflicting access. - Develop, test, deploy, and troubleshoot GPOs, including links, inheritance, precedence, security filtering, WMI filters, backups, and recovery; assess changes for security and customer impact before production. - Configure, validate, and troubleshoot domain and forest trusts, reviewing direction, transitivity, authentication scope, and name-suffix routing. - Maintain AD sites, subnets, site links, and replication topology; troubleshoot replication failures, latency, and lingering objects; and maintain domain-controller health, SYSVOL, DFSR, time sync, AD-integrated DNS, and FSMO roles. - Plan and execute domain-controller installation, upgrade, demotion, and retirement and transitions to supported AD versions; govern and coordinate controlled schema extensions. - Process escalated account, group, and permission changes; troubleshoot authentication, authorization, policy, trust, and replication issues; and improve identity-related Service Desk routing and knowledge content. - Provide advanced support during identity and authentication incidents, escalate widespread failures through incident-response procedures, and support root-cause analysis and corrective actions. - Develop, maintain, and test AD backup, authoritative and non-authoritative restoration, deleted-object recovery, and forest-recovery procedures, and support COOP and disaster-recovery exercises. - Support integration testing between AD and Okta or other approved identity platforms, validating synchronization, authentication flows, attribute and group mappings, provisioning, and SAML, OIDC, OAuth, SCIM, or LDAP protocols, and documenting test results. - Automate approved directory administration, health validation, and reporting; review audit information; apply DISA STIGs and security baselines; and support RMF controls, POA&M activities, and remediation. - Maintain SOPs, recovery plans, configuration baselines, and directory diagrams, and provide directory-service health, risk, and modernization information for program reporting. ### Education & Experience **Required:** - Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience where permitted by the labor category. - Minimum of eight (8) years of relevant experience in Active Directory engineering, identity engineering, Windows infrastructure, systems engineering, or a related discipline. - Direct, hands-on experience engineering and administering Microsoft AD DS in an enterprise environment, including objects, OUs, GPOs, trusts, replication, schema, delegated permissions, and directory recovery. - Experience troubleshooting complex authentication, authorization, Group Policy, replication, and trust issues, and planning or supporting AD backup, restoration, and forest recovery. - Experience testing identity integrations or supporting identity-modernization activities, with an understanding of the distinction between core AD DS and external ICAM, federation, or cloud-identity services. - Strong written, verbal, analytical, and technical problem-solving skills. **Preferred:** - Experience integrating AD with Okta, and with Microsoft Entra ID or hybrid identity. - Experience supporting federal or DoD ICAM initiatives, including CAC, PIV, certificate-based authentication, and PKI. - Experience with SAML, OIDC, OAuth, SCIM, LDAP, Kerberos, NTLM, AD FS, or comparable federation technologies. - Experience with PowerShell for AD administration and automation. - Experience applying DISA STIGs to AD and Windows infrastructure and supporting RMF authorization activities. - Familiarity with Zero Trust identity principles and privileged-access, identity-governance, or audit tools. ### Certifications - Required: None. - Preferred: Microsoft identity, Windows Server, or Azure certification; Okta Certified Administrator, Okta Certified Consultant, or comparable; CompTIA Security+, CISSP, or another security certification; ITIL 4 Foundation. ### Security Clearance - Active Secret clearance or higher is required. ### Other (Travel, Work Environment, DoD 8570 Requirements, Administrative Notes, etc.) **Work Environment / Travel:** - Remote position; Chicago, IL–area candidates preferred. - Occasional after-hours maintenance, COOP exercises, disaster-recovery testing, incident response, on-site support, or travel may be required. **Administrative Notes:** **Period of Performance:** March 1, 2027 – February 28, 2033 **Contract Start Date:** March 1, 2027 Note: By applying to this position, the candidate acknowledges and consents to having their resume included in an active competitive Government contract bid.