The posting
Job Title: Principal IS Unix Architect
Job Location: Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States
Job Location Type: Remote
Job Contract Type: Full-time
Job Seniority Level:
Join Amgen’s Mission of Serving Patients
At Amgen, if you feel like you’re part of something bigger, it’s because you are. Our shared mission—to serve patients living with serious illnesses—drives all that we do.
Since 1980, we’ve helped pioneer the world of biotech in our fight against the world’s toughest diseases. With our focus on four therapeutic areas –Oncology, Inflammation, General Medicine, and Rare Disease– we reach millions of patients each year. Amgen is advancing a broad and deep pipeline of medicines to treat cancer, heart disease, inflammatory conditions, rare diseases, and obesity and obesity-related conditions. As a member of the Amgen team, you’ll help make a lasting impact on the lives of patients as we research, manufacture, and deliver innovative medicines to help people live longer, fuller happier lives.
Our award-winning culture is collaborative, innovative, and science based. If you have a passion for challenges and the opportunities that lay within them, you’ll thrive as part of the Amgen team. Join us and transform the lives of patients while transforming your career.
Principal IS Unix Architect
What you will do
Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital role, you will serve as a principal technical leader for our enterprise Unix and Linux platforms. Your expertise in operating-system architecture, automation, reliability, security, performance, and lifecycle management will be essential to delivering resilient infrastructure for business-critical applications across on-premises and cloud environments. A strong background in platform engineering, infrastructure as code, storage, networking, virtualization, and production operations is highly valued.
Roles & Responsibilities:
• Lead the end-to-end architecture, engineering, and lifecycle management of enterprise Unix and Linux platforms, from technical strategy and standards through deployment, operations, modernization, and retirement.
• Act as the technical owner for large-scale Unix and Linux initiatives, driving architecture decisions, platform standardization, scalability, availability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
• Architect scalable Unix platforms across Amgen’s data centers, AWS, Azure, or GCP, integrating virtualization, supporting container orchestration, storage, networking, and enterprise management tooling.
• Define and institutionalize architectural standards, validation controls, and governance frameworks for operating-system builds, configuration baselines, patching, vulnerability remediation, privileged access, audit readiness, and regulatory compliance.
• Advise senior technical leadership, security teams, and other architects and business stakeholders to present architectural options and tradeoffs based on service requirements and platform capabilities. Influence and help the Unix service owner achieve measurable improvements in reliability, performance, observability and operational efficiency.
• Establish and enforce best practices in platform engineering, infrastructure as code, configuration management, and DevSecOps, driving the platform architecture roadmap to continue improving automated provisioning, CI/CD, backup and recovery, configuration-drift control, Agentic AI and cost optimization.
• Drive capacity planning, performance engineering, and technology modernization, using workload trends, benchmarking, root-cause analysis, and controlled testing to improve system efficiency and reduce technical debt.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to L4 and L5 engineers through architecture reviews, automation and script reviews, complex troubleshooting, operational readiness assessments, and technical guidance.
• Lead cross-functional collaboration across Unix engineering, cloud, storage, network, database, middleware, cybersecurity, application, and service management teams to deliver integrated infrastructure solutions.
• Stay current with advancements in Unix technologies, automation, cloud-native infrastructure, observability, security, and lead the evaluation and adoption of technologies and architecture changes to improve platform resilience and supportability.
• Provide major incident escalation leadership and complex problem resolution for Unix services, coordinating technical teams, restoring service, identifying root causes, and ensuring corrective actions prevent recurrence.
What we expect of you
We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The professional we seek is an enterprise Unix & Linux architect with these qualifications.
Basic Qualifications:
Doctorate degree and 2 years of relevant experience
OR
Master’s degree and 4 years of relevant experience
OR
Bachelor’s degree and 6 years relevant experience
OR
Associate’s degree and 10 years relevant experience
OR
High school diploma / GED and 12 years relevant experience
Preferred Qualifications:
• Deep expertise in enterprise Linux architecture, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and or Amazon Linux, operating-system internals, system hardening, patching, upgrades, performance tuning, capacity management, reference architectures, technology roadmaps, architecture principles and standards.
• Strong Unix systems design, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to independently lead major technical initiatives, establish architectural and engineering standards, and resolve complex cross-platform incidents.
• Proven track record of designing, delivering, and supporting large-scale, highly available Unix and Linux platforms across physical, virtualized, and cloud environments, with expertise in clustering, disaster recovery, storage, networking, and service continuity.
• Advanced automation and scripting expertise using Ansible, Python, Shell/Bash, infrastructure as code, source control, and CI/CD practices to standardize builds, eliminate configuration drift, and automate provisioning and operational tasks.
• Demonstrated proficiency in AWS, Azure, or GCP infrastructure, virtualization, container platforms, enterprise monitoring, and security controls, with a strong understanding of resilient hybrid-cloud architecture and cost optimization.
• Proven ability to provide principal-level technical leadership, mentor junior and mid-level engineers, communicate with technical and business stakeholders, and coordinate effectively during major incidents.
Good-to-Have Skills:
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Relevant industry certifications such as RHCE, AWS, Azure, GCP.
• Advanced experience with Ansible Automation Platform, Terraform, Puppet, or similar tools for enterprise-scale provisioning, configuration management, orchestration, and compliance automation.
• Experience designing and maintaining standardized operating-system images, automated build pipelines, configuration-as-code repositories, and policy-based validation controls.
• Experience with identity and access management, privileged access management, LDAP, Active Directory integration, Kerberos, certificates, and secrets management.
• Knowledge of security and compliance frameworks such as CIS benchmarks, vulnerability management, audit controls, and automated remediation.
• Working knowledge of enterprise middleware and database dependencies on Unix/Linux platforms, including performance, connectivity, patching, and startup or shutdown coordination.
What you can expect of us
As we work to develop treatments that take care of others, we also work to care for your professional and personal growth and well-being. From our competitive benefits to our collaborative culture, we’ll support your journey every step of the way.
The expected annual salary range for this role in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico) is posted. Actual salary will vary based on several factors including but not limited to, relevant skills, experience, and qualifications.
In addition to the base salary, Amgen offers a Total Rewards Plan, based on eligibility, comprising of health and welfare plans for staff and eligible dependents, financial plans with opportunities to save towards retirement or other goals, work/life balance, and career development opportunities that may include:
• A comprehensive employee benefits package, including a Retirement and Savings Plan with generous company contributions, group medical, dental and vision coverage, life and disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts
• A discretionary annual bonus program, or for field sales representatives, a sales-based incentive plan
• Stock-based long-term incentives
• Award-winning time-off plans
• Flexible work models where possible. Refer to the Work Location Type in the job posting to see if this applies
Apply now and make a lasting impact with the Amgen team.
careers.amgen.com
In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
Application deadline
Amgen does not have an application deadline for this position; we will continue accepting applications until we receive a sufficient number or select a candidate for the position.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship for this role is not guaranteed.
As an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people around the world, Amgen fosters an inclusive environment of diverse, ethical, committed and highly accomplished people who respect each other and live the Amgen values to continue advancing science to serve patients. Together, we compete in the fight against serious disease.
Amgen is an Equal Opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.
We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.
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