Engineer

Description

This is a U.S.-based role. Every program the team supports requires U.S. citizenship for employment, and all work must take place within the continental U.S.

The company is a non-traditional defense technology firm, headquartered in McLean, VA, that builds AI, ML, and data systems for U.S. military and government customers. Its focus areas are distributed data, large-scale platforms, and complex application development.

The team builds data, AI, and operations platforms that support time-sensitive decisions across several classification levels and deployment settings. These systems run from cloud development environments into classified, on-premises, and edge sites, where reliability, security, and repeatable delivery matter.

The DevOps Engineer role covers securing, deploying, and running the platforms behind [R]DP, [R]AP, [R]AIMS, and the MLOps workflows. It is broader than infrastructure work: you will learn the software, how data moves through the platform, how Kubernetes workloads behave in production, and how security becomes part of routine delivery.

You will work across CI/CD, GitOps, Kubernetes, Helm, observability, secure configuration, data pipelines, ML serving, and customer deployments, alongside platform, software, data, and security engineers. You will own well-scoped tasks. The ideal person is curious, disciplined, persistent in troubleshooting, and ready to take on broader platform ownership over time.

Success looks like reliably completing assigned deployment, automation, observability, and security tasks, with clear communication and good follow-through. You can explain what changed, why, how it was verified, and what risk remains. You move from following runbooks to improving them, then to owning small platform improvements end to end. Senior engineers trust you with well-defined operational work because you investigate carefully and escalate early.

Responsibilities

• Build, run, and fix Kubernetes platform infrastructure with guidance from senior engineers.
• Create and maintain CI/CD and GitOps pipelines using GitLab CI, Argo CD, Flux, Helm, and deployment configuration kept in repositories.
• Apply secure delivery practices: harden containers, scan for vulnerabilities, verify image provenance, manage secrets properly, and enforce policy gates in deployments.
• Help run deployments in cloud, on-premises, and disconnected settings across AWS, Azure, data centers, and tactical environments.
• Deploy and debug services, Helm charts, service mesh configuration, and Kubernetes networking, storage, and runtime behavior.
• Support observability with Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, Loki, Kibana, OpenTelemetry, or similar tools so problems are found and fixed quickly.
• Partner with software and data engineers on service dependencies, data flows, and how systems fail in operation.
• Support data and MLOps workloads, which may include Kafka, Flink, Pinot, KServe, Kubeflow, Ray, GPU workloads, and model serving.
• Write maintainable automation and small tools in Go, Java, Python, Bash, or similar languages to cut manual work and improve repeatability.
• Contribute to compliance-driven delivery aligned with RMF, STIGs, NIST 800-53, IL4/IL5/IL6, and customer security requirements.
• Write operational procedures, deployment notes, troubleshooting steps, and lessons learned that other engineers can reuse.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of hands-on experience in DevSecOps, DevOps, platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, systems administration, cybersecurity engineering, or a closely related role.
• Working knowledge of Linux, containers, Docker, and Kubernetes basics: pods, services, deployments, config maps, secrets, ingress, and basic troubleshooting.
• Experience building, running, or supporting CI/CD pipelines, with exposure to GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Argo CD, Flux, or similar tools.
• Exposure to Infrastructure as Code or configuration management with Terraform, Ansible, Helm, Kustomize, or similar tools.
• Understanding of core security practices: least privilege, vulnerability management, container image scanning, secrets handling, secure configuration, and auditability.
• Ability to read application logs, check runtime configuration, use command-line tools, and trace issues to root cause.
• Basic scripting or programming in Go, Java, Python, Bash, or a comparable language.
• Interest in data platforms, streaming systems, MLOps, and operational AI/ML workloads; prior exposure to Kafka, Flink, KServe, Kubeflow, or Ray is a plus.
• Strong written communication and willingness to document work for teammates, customers, and future operators.
• Active Secret clearance required; must be eligible for and willing to obtain a Top Secret/SCI clearance.
• Ability to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment.
• Ability to travel up to 30%.
• Highly preferred: hands-on experience deploying applications with Helm or Kustomize in a Kubernetes environment.
• Highly preferred: exposure to GitOps workflows and continuous delivery across multiple environments.
• Highly preferred: familiarity with AWS or Azure basics, including IAM, networking, storage, compute, and managed Kubernetes services.
• Highly preferred: exposure to service mesh technology such as Istio, including mTLS, traffic routing, and observability concepts.
• Highly preferred: familiarity with government security and compliance frameworks, including RMF, STIGs, FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, and IL4/IL5/IL6 controls.
• Highly preferred: experience supporting air-gapped, disconnected, classified, or resource-constrained deployments.
• Highly preferred: exposure to SBOMs, SCA, SAST, DAST, container scanning, admission control, OPA/Gatekeeper, Kyverno, Sigstore, or similar supply chain security tools.
• Strongly preferred: existing TS/SCI clearance.

Conditions

Hybrid work based in Colorado Springs, with up to 30% travel.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and considers all applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary.
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) with company match.
• Take-as-needed PTO plus 11 paid holidays.
• Education and training benefits.
• Referral bonuses.
• Additional benefits are also available.