Senior PKI & Venafi Engineer

Job Title: Senior PKI & Venafi Engineer
Location: Chicago, IL
Duration: 06 months (with possibility of extension)
Pay Rate: $52-60/hr on W2/C2C

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior PKI & Venafi Engineer with strong experience in Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM), Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Venafi Trust Protection Platform, and certificate automation. The ideal candidate will be responsible for managing enterprise certificate services, onboarding applications into CLM platforms, implementing automation solutions, and supporting PKI operations across hybrid and cloud environments.

The engineer will work closely with security teams, application owners, infrastructure teams, cloud teams, and vendors to ensure secure certificate issuance, deployment, monitoring, renewal, and governance while reducing manual operational efforts through automation.

Key Responsibilities:

Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM)

• Administer and support enterprise Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) services.
• Manage the complete certificate lifecycle including:
  • Certificate discovery
  • Request and approval workflows
  • Issuance
  • Renewal
  • Revocation
  • Deployment
  • Monitoring
  • Retirement
• Ensure certificates comply with enterprise security standards and industry requirements.
• Maintain certificate inventory, visibility, and governance processes.
• Remediate issues related to:
  • Expiring certificates
  • Unmanaged certificates
  • Self-signed certificates
  • Non-compliant certificates

Venafi Platform Administration

• Administer and maintain the Venafi Trust Protection Platform and related infrastructure.
• Configure and manage:
  • Policies
  • Workflows
  • Certificate Authorities
  • Integrations
  • Discovery Jobs
  • Notifications
  • Reporting
  • Access Controls
• Support Venafi upgrades, maintenance activities, and technology refresh initiatives.
• Collaborate with Venafi support teams and vendors to troubleshoot issues and implement enhancements.

Application Onboarding & Solution Engineering

• Lead application onboarding activities into the enterprise CLM platform.
• Analyze application certificate requirements and define onboarding strategies.
• Design and implement certificate automation solutions based on application architecture.
• Work with application teams to understand:
  • Certificate formats
  • Trust requirements
  • Deployment architectures
  • Operational processes
• Support certificate onboarding across:
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Azure
  • Kubernetes
  • WebLogic
  • IIS
  • F5
  • Kafka
  • Solace
  • Ping
  • Cloud-native platforms
• Provide technical guidance and recommendations to application teams.

Certificate Automation

• Design, develop, and support automated certificate lifecycle solutions.
• Implement automation using:
  • Venafi Native Drivers
  • Venafi APIs
  • vCert Utilities
  • CI/CD Pipelines
  • GitHub Actions
  • Azure DevOps
  • PowerShell
  • Python
  • Ansible
• Automate:
  • Certificate renewal
  • Provisioning
  • Deployment validation
  • Application restart processes
• Develop reusable automation frameworks and onboarding patterns.
• Reduce manual certificate management activities and operational risks.

PKI Operations & Resiliency

• Support enterprise PKI infrastructure and Certificate Authority services.
• Participate in:
  • Certificate Authority operations
  • CRL publication activities
  • Backup and recovery testing
  • Disaster Recovery exercises
  • PKI resiliency improvements
• Monitor certificate ecosystem health and availability.
• Manage root and intermediate certificate activities.
• Participate in incident response and troubleshooting.

Required Technical Skills:

• Strong experience with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and certificate management.
• Hands-on experience with Venafi Trust Protection Platform.
• Experience with Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) processes.
• Strong knowledge of:
  • Certificate issuance
  • Renewal
  • Revocation
  • Deployment
  • Monitoring
  • Governance
• Experience with certificate automation and integration solutions.
• Strong scripting/programming experience with:
  • PowerShell
  • Python
  • Ansible
• Experience with CI/CD automation:
  • GitHub Actions
  • Azure DevOps Pipelines
• Experience supporting certificates across:
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Azure Cloud
  • Kubernetes environments
• Knowledge of enterprise security standards and certificate best practices.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with Azure security services.
• Experience with cloud-native certificate management.
• Knowledge of TLS/SSL certificates and encryption standards.
• Experience with F5, IIS, WebLogic, Kafka, Solace, and Ping integrations.
• Strong troubleshooting and incident management skills.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.