About Pioneer Circuits

Since its establishment in 1981, Pioneer Circuits has been leading the way in technology solutions for mission-critical systems. As the leading, privately held U.S. manufacturer of innovative high-performance flexible circuit boards, we are dedicated to the design, production, and assembly of advanced printed circuit board assembly (PCBAs) technology solutions.

We develop cutting-edge solutions that explore new frontiers, serve and protect our armed forces and allies, safeguard national security against evolving threats, and propel advancements in hypersonic technology.

Our customers include some of the largest aerospace and defense companies like RTX, Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, NASA, JPL, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.

About the Opportunity

We are building the cloud and data backbone for a manufacturing floor that is becoming genuinely intelligent — AI-driven scheduling, computer-vision inspection, digital work orders, and a unified data layer running in AWS GovCloud. This role builds and runs that infrastructure.

This is a hands-on engineering role, not a systems administration role. You will make architecture and / or tooling decisions, write infrastructure as code, build pipelines, instrument systems so they explain themselves, and work directly alongside our AI and Automation engineers to get models and services into production inside a regulated environment.

We are deliberately open on years of experience, with one exception: you need to have worked in AWS. Everything we are building runs there, and we are not in a position to teach the platform from scratch. Beyond that, we would rather hire a sharp engineer with strong fundamentals, real automation instincts, and obvious momentum than someone with a longer resume and less curiosity. If you have provisioned AWS with Terraform, shipped through CI/CD, containerized an application, and wired up an AI-powered tool because you wanted to see if it would work — you are the profile we are looking for. Defense and compliance experience is something we will teach you.

What You’ll Do

Infrastructure as code and automation

Build and maintain infrastructure as code using Terraform (or CloudFormation/CDK) so environments are repeatable, reviewable, and version-controlled
Write automation in Python, Bash, or PowerShell to remove manual steps and speed up recurring work
Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and application deployment using GitLab CI.
Apply configuration management at scale using Ansible, AWS Systems Manager, or similar tooling

Cloud environments and containerized workloads

Design, deploy, and operate secure cloud environments across AWS GovCloud and Microsoft 365 GCC High, supporting containerized applications and serverless architectures
Package and run containerized services using Docker, growing into orchestration on ECS or EKS
Build with managed and serverless services — Lambda, S3, API Gateway, Step Functions — rather than standing up servers by default
Partner with our AI engineers to deploy and operate AI/ML and LLM-backed workloads, including inference endpoints, data pipelines, and retrieval systems

Observability, reliability, and cloud cost

Deploy centralized logging, distributed tracing, and real-time monitoring across hybrid cloud and on-premise environments using CloudWatch, or similar platforms
Automate monitoring configuration and alerting as code so observability ships with the infrastructure rather than after it
Track and alert on cloud cost and usage changes, and surface optimization opportunities to engineering leadership
Use AI-assisted anomaly detection and log analysis to find problems before they reach the floor, and grow into defining SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets for critical systems

Security and compliance in a regulated environment

Support continuous compliance with CMMC, NIST SP 800-171, ITAR, and DFARS requirements as we prepare for third-party assessment
Implement identity and access management, single sign-on, least-privilege policy, and encryption in transit and at rest
Document systems, configurations, and control evidence to a standard that holds up under audit
Contribute to endpoint management and EDR/XDR operations across Windows, Linux, and macOS

What You’ll Bring

AWS experience. Demonstrable, hands-on experience building and operating on AWS — not classroom or certification-only exposure. You should be able to walk us through services you have personally deployed and what went wrong the first time. We expect working familiarity with the core set: IAM, S3, EC2, VPC and networking, CloudWatch, and Lambda, plus at least one managed service you have used in anger
AWS through infrastructure as code. You have provisioned AWS resources through code rather than the console — Terraform preferred, CloudFormation or CDK accepted
Certification. AWS certification at any level — Cloud Practitioner, any Associate, or higher. If your hands-on depth outruns your credentials, say so in your application; we will consider it, and you would be expected to certify within your first 90 days

Core Competencies

Infrastructure as code. Hands-on experience writing infrastructure as code, ideally Terraform
CI/CD. You have built or meaningfully contributed to a deployment pipeline in Azure DevOps, GitLab, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or similar
Scripting and development. Practical proficiency in Python and Bash.
Containers. You have built and run containerized applications with Docker or Podman
Observability. Experience with a monitoring or observability platform such as Datadog, CloudWatch, Grafana, or Splunk
Applied AI. You have built something real with modern AI tooling — an LLM-backed application, a RAG pipeline, a chatbot, or an ML workflow. Personal and academic projects count
Communication. You write documentation people can actually follow, and you can explain a technical decision to someone in operations or quality

Preferred Qualifications

Advanced AWS certification — Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, or Security Specialty
Any exposure to AWS GovCloud, or to AWS under a compliance regime or exposure to a regulated or compliance-driven environment — CMMC, FedRAMP, ITAR, SOC 2, HIPAA, or similar
Container orchestration on ECS, EKS, or Kubernetes
Experience with cloud cost management or FinOps practices
Familiarity with AI/ML platforms such as SageMaker, MLflow, Bedrock, or Kubeflow
Front-end or full-stack ability (React, Next.js, TypeScript) for building internal tools and dashboards
Exposure to manufacturing systems, SCADA, MES, industrial IoT, or edge computing
Certifications such as Terraform Associate, CKA, Security+, or CISSP

What Makes This Role Different

This is not about maintaining legacy systems. You'll be:

Building AI-first infrastructure from a clean sheet rather than inheriting a decade of technical debt
Working with AWS GovCloud in a secure, mission-critical environment
Automating everything, from deployment through incident response
Seeing your work land on a physical factory floor within weeks, not quarters
Collaborating across AI, manufacturing, and defense technology teams
Operating at the intersection of cloud, AI, and national security

If you're ready to move beyond traditional sysadmin work and build the intelligent infrastructure of tomorrow, we want to hear from you.

Job Type:

Full-Time/Permanent
On Site Only - No Relocation Assistance at this time

California Pay Range

$95,000—$115,000 USD

The actual compensation offered is based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, years and depth of experience, certifications, and other relevant business considerations.

Pioneer Circuits provides a comprehensive benefits package for all full-time roles, encompassing healthcare, dental, and vision insurance for employees and eligible dependents. Additionally, employees enjoy paid vacation, paid holidays, and a 401(k) plan + company match, along with various voluntary benefits options.

This is an ITAR-controlled facility. As such, all applicants must be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. Employment eligibility will be verified through the E-Verify system as part of the hiring process.

Pioneer Circuits is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity, or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

Pioneer Circuits Inc.

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