Linux System Administrator

Black Canyon Consulting (BCC) is searching for an Linux System Administrator to support the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). This opportunity is full time and onsite at the NCBI in Bethesda, MD.

NCBI is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  NCBI is the world’s premier biomedical center hosting over six million daily users that seek research, clinical, genetic, and other information that directly impacts biomedical research and public health – at NCBI you can literally help to accelerate cures for diseases! NCBI’s wide range of applications, platforms (node, python, Django, C++, you name it) and environments (big data [petabytes], machine learning, multiple clouds) serve more users than almost any other US Government Agency according to https://analytics.usa.gov/. 

We attract the best people in the business with our competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision coverage, 401k plan with employer contribution, paid holidays, vacation, and tuition reimbursement. If you enjoy being a part of a high performing, professional service and technology focused organization, please apply today!

• Strong understanding of high-volume web service architecture — how traffic flows, where bottlenecks and abuse vectors appear, and how load balancers and edge infrastructure make routing decisions.
• Hands-on experience with a major cloud provider's security and networking stack, including:
• Solid grasp of HTTP/HTTPS protocol internals — headers, TLS behavior, connection patterns, and how these relate to traffic analysis and fingerprinting techniques.
• Experience analyzing traffic using network and application-layer signals including address-based, organizational, and transport-layer fingerprinting methods.
• Familiarity with common web server platforms, their log formats, and configuration.
• Ability to read, write, and tune access control and rate-limiting rules under pressure.
• Comfort working across hybrid infrastructure environments.

• Experience with advanced abuse mitigation techniques, including traffic redirection and challenge-response mechanisms.
• Scripting or automation experience (Python, Bash, or similar) for log parsing and rule generation.
• Prior work protecting high-traffic government or research platforms.
• Knowledge of bot detection techniques beyond simple blocking — behavioral signals, fingerprinting, headless browser detection, and similar approaches.
• Familiarity with evolving attacker tradecraft and how modern scrapers and abusers adapt to countermeasures.