What are the responsibilities and job description for the Cloud VDI Engineer (Azure Virtual Desktop) position at Applied Research Solutions?
ARS is seeking a Cloud VDI Engineer to design, operate, automate, and enhance Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environments within a classified government environment. This role ensures the reliability, security, and performance of Windows and Linux virtual desktop infrastructure, including image creation, session host management, application delivery, platform monitoring, and advanced troubleshooting.
The Cloud VDI Engineer supports a mission-critical virtual desktop platform by collaborating closely with Platform Engineering, SRE, DevOps, Security, Networking, and application development teams. This role contributes to architectural decisions, cloud-native integrations, automation strategies, and high-assurance cloud design patterns. The engineer will help scale and modernize the AVD service while maintaining strict security and compliance standards.
Why Work with us?
Applied Research Solutions (ARS) is respected as a world-class provider of technically integrated solutions as we deliver premier talent and technology across our focused markets for unparalleled, continuous mission support. Awarded a Best Places to Work nominee since 2020, ARS recognizes that without our career- driven, loyal professionals, we would not be able to deliver state-of-the-art results for our mission partners. We firmly believe that prioritizing our employees is of the upmost importance. We provide a culture where our employees are challenged to meet their career goals and aspirations, while still obtaining a work/life balance. ARS employees are motivated through our industry competitive benefits package, our awards and recognition program, and personalized attention from ARS Senior Managers.
Responsibilities include:
- Administer and maintain Azure Virtual Desktop environments, including host pools, session hosts, workspaces, and application groups
- Build, validate, deploy, and maintain standardized Windows and Linux VM images
- Manage full lifecycle operations for VDI session hosts (provisioning, patching, scaling, and retirement)
- Diagnose and resolve complex issues related to user sessions, profiles, authentication, applications, networking, and system performance
- Package and deploy applications using Salt and other approved automation or configuration‑management tools
- Monitor platform health, performance, capacity, and utilization; implement durable corrective actions for recurring issues
- Apply system‑hardening standards, security baselines, and vulnerability remediation to images and session hosts
- Plan and execute platform upgrades, image releases, patching windows, and scheduled maintenance
- Support incident response, root‑cause analysis, capacity planning, and continuous improvement initiatives
- Other duties as assigned
Qualifications/ Technical Experience Requirements:
- Must be a US citizen
- Active Secret security clearance
- Ability to meet eligibility requirements for applicable Special Access Programs
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent relevant experience, if contract allows)
- At least three years of professional experience supporting cloud, VDI, or virtualized infrastructure
- Hands-on experience administering Azure Virtual Desktop or a comparable enterprise VDI platform
- Experience building, patching, and maintaining Windows virtual machine images
- Working knowledge of Azure services supporting VDI environments
- Strong Windows systems administration and troubleshooting skills
- Strong documentation and communication skills
- Security certified or ability to obtain within 1-2 months
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with at least one configuration‑management or automation tool (e.g., Salt, Ansible, Chef, Puppet)
- Experience troubleshooting identity, networking, profile, application, and performance issues in virtualized environments
- Experience with platform monitoring, incident response, and root-cause analysis
- AZ‑104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification
All positions at Applied Research Solutions are subject to background investigations. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background investigation including criminal history and identity check.
This contractor and subcontractor shall abide by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-741.5(a). This regulation prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals on the basis of disability, and requires affirmative action by covered prime contractors and subcontractors to employ and advance in employment qualified individuals with disabilities.
This contractor and subcontractor shall abide by the requirements of 41 CFR 60-300.5(a). This regulation prohibits discrimination against qualified protected veterans, and requires affirmative action by covered contractors and subcontractors to employ and advance in employment qualified protected veterans.