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Senior PKI & Venafi Engineer

SysMind, LLCChicago, IL🇺🇸United States

Quick overview

SeniorityMid Senior
Work modeHybrid
LocationChicago, IL, United States

Job description

Job Locations: Chicago, IL / Tempe, AZ
Experience Required: 10+ Years
Job Type: Contract

Job Description

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior PKI & Venafi Engineer to support and enhance enterprise Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) capabilities. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on experience with the Venafi Trust Protection Platform, certificate lifecycle automation, PKI operations, application onboarding, and certificate governance across hybrid and cloud environments.

The engineer will serve as a subject matter expert in enterprise certificate management, PKI architecture, automation frameworks, and operational resiliency. This role requires close collaboration with application, infrastructure, cloud, and security teams to ensure certificates are securely deployed, monitored, renewed, and governed throughout their lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

1. Certificate Lifecycle Management

  • Administer and support enterprise Certificate Lifecycle Management services.

  • Manage the complete certificate lifecycle, including discovery, requests, issuance, renewal, revocation, deployment, monitoring, and retirement.

  • Maintain certificate inventory, visibility, ownership, and compliance with enterprise security standards.

  • Identify and remediate expiring, unmanaged, self-signed, and non-compliant certificates.

  • Improve certificate lifecycle processes and reduce operational risks associated with certificate expiration.

2. Venafi Platform Administration

  • Administer, configure, and maintain the Venafi Trust Protection Platform and supporting infrastructure.

  • Configure and manage policies, workflows, certificate authorities, integrations, discovery jobs, notifications, reporting, and access controls.

  • Support platform upgrades, maintenance, technology refreshes, and operational enhancements.

  • Troubleshoot platform issues and collaborate with vendors and Venafi support teams to implement resolutions.

  • Maintain platform performance, availability, and operational reliability.

3. Application Onboarding & Solution Engineering

  • Lead application onboarding into enterprise Certificate Lifecycle Management platforms.

  • Assess application certificate requirements and define appropriate onboarding and deployment approaches.

  • Design certificate automation patterns aligned with application architectures and operational needs.

  • Collaborate with application teams to understand certificate formats, trust requirements, deployment architectures, and operational processes.

  • Support onboarding across Windows, Linux, Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, WebLogic, IIS, F5, Kafka, Solace, Ping, and cloud-native platforms.

  • Provide technical consultation and solution recommendations to application and infrastructure teams.

4. Certificate Automation

  • Design, implement, and support automated certificate provisioning, renewal, deployment, and validation solutions.

  • Develop automation using Venafi native drivers, Venafi APIs, vCert utilities, CI/CD pipelines, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, PowerShell, Python, and Ansible.

  • Automate certificate renewal, deployment validation, and application restart activities.

  • Reduce manual certificate management processes and minimize operational risks.

  • Develop reusable automation frameworks, onboarding patterns, and implementation standards.

  • Integrate certificate lifecycle processes with application delivery and DevOps workflows.

5. PKI Operations & Resiliency

  • Support internal PKI infrastructure and Certificate Authority services.

  • Participate in Certificate Authority operations, Certificate Revocation List (CRL) publication, and root and intermediate certificate management.

  • Conduct backup and recovery testing and participate in disaster recovery exercises.

  • Improve platform resiliency, availability, and certificate ecosystem health.

  • Monitor certificate infrastructure and troubleshoot operational incidents.

  • Participate in major incident response and root cause analysis.

6. Security, Governance & Compliance

  • Support certificate governance, security compliance, and enterprise PKI initiatives.

  • Maintain certificate ownership, metadata, inventory, and accountability records.

  • Ensure adherence to security standards for TLS/SSL, certificate issuance, cryptographic key management, and Certificate Authority controls.

  • Identify certificate-related security risks and coordinate remediation.

  • Promote secure certificate management practices across enterprise applications and infrastructure.

Primary Skills

  • Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

  • Venafi Trust Protection Platform

  • Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM)

  • Enterprise Certificate Administration

  • Certificate Discovery, Issuance, Renewal, and Revocation

  • Certificate Automation and Deployment

  • Certificate Authority (CA) Operations

  • PKI Architecture and Certificate Governance

  • Application Onboarding and Integration

  • TLS/SSL Certificate Management

Secondary Skills

  • Microsoft Azure

  • Windows and Linux Administration

  • Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Platforms

  • WebLogic and IIS

  • F5 Load Balancers

  • Kafka and Solace

  • GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps

  • CI/CD Pipeline Integration

  • Venafi APIs, Native Drivers, and vCert Utilities

  • PowerShell and Python

  • Ansible

  • CRL Publication and Certificate Revocation

  • Cryptographic Key Management

  • Backup, Recovery, and Disaster Recovery

  • Security Compliance and Incident Management

Required Qualifications

  • 10+ years of relevant professional experience in PKI, certificate management, security engineering, or infrastructure engineering.

  • Strong hands-on experience administering and supporting the Venafi Trust Protection Platform.

  • Extensive knowledge of enterprise certificate lifecycle management and PKI operations.

  • Experience automating certificate provisioning, renewal, deployment, monitoring, and revocation.

  • Proven ability to onboard applications into certificate management platforms across hybrid and cloud environments.

  • Experience integrating Venafi with application platforms, infrastructure systems, and CI/CD pipelines.

  • Strong understanding of Certificate Authorities, root and intermediate certificates, CRLs, TLS/SSL, and cryptographic key management.

  • Experience with scripting and automation using PowerShell, Python, Ansible, or similar tools.

  • Familiarity with Microsoft Azure and cloud-native application environments.

  • Strong troubleshooting, analytical, documentation, and stakeholder collaboration skills.


All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, as required by applicable law. Applicants who require a reasonable accommodation during the hiring process may request assistance.
Employment may be contingent upon the successful completion of job-related pre-employment screening, which may include background and reference checks and, where permitted by applicable law and applicable to the position, drug testing. All such screening will be conducted in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

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