Service Desk Engineer (Top Secret Clearance Required)

Ardent is seeking a Service Desk Engineer to join our team.

This is a onsite position in Washington DC - candidates must currently hold an active TOP SECRET Clearance.

Position Description:

Ardent is seeking a Service Desk Engineer to design, implement, and maintain technical controls to reduce the risk of unauthorized initial discovery and lateral movement, malicious credential use and defense evasion, and persistence via machine key and related system-abuse techniques within CBO’s environment. The engineering services will also enable secure endpoint, identity, and device lifecycle operations in support of CBO’s threat detection and mitigation strategy. This scope does not include routine end-user help desk support, but rather engineering tasks to resolve issues arising from complex or escalated tickets.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Design and maintain secure standard workstation images that enable access to the VDI environment for remote users on both macOS and Windows platforms.

• Design and maintain secure standard workstation images that enable access to the VDI environment for on-site users on both macOS and Windows platforms.

• Engineer and maintain operating system and application patching, version control, and lifecycle management for supported applications, ensuring delivery through approved mechanisms such as a company application store, Microsoft Intune, or Group Policy Objects (GPO) based on user role and access level.

• Engineering and maintaining secure baseline configurations for macOS and Windows endpoints to support both on-site and remote access use cases.

• Using Ivanti and KACE to manage operating system and application patching, version control, deployment workflows, and remediation of configuration drift.

• Leveraging Microsoft Intune to enforce device compliance, configuration profiles, security policies, and conditional access requirements based on user role and device posture.

• Design, build, and maintain standardized, division-specific workstation images for macOS and Windows that incorporate approved baseline security controls and required VDI/remote access clients.

• Maintain imaging toolchains and automation scripts (Ivanti, KACE, JAMF, or equivalent) used for image creation, testing, and deployment; validate image integrity prior to production release.

• Engineer and operate patch management processes using Ivanti (or equivalent) for OS and third-party application patching; coordinate Intune/GPO-based patch orchestration for Windows endpoints.

• Implement and maintain enrollment workflows for Intune, Autopilot (Windows), and Apple Business Manager / JAMF for macOS and iOS devices.