Staff Engineer

Description

The role is for U.S.-based candidates only, since every program supported requires U.S. citizenship for employment. All work must take place within the continental United States.

The company is a non-traditional defense technology firm headquartered in McLean, VA. It builds AI, machine learning and data systems for U.S. military and government agencies, works on autonomous data fusion and agentic AI, and focuses on distributed data systems, platforms at scale and complex application development. Its clients are federal and public agencies, and its digital solutions affect the lives of millions of Americans.

As a Staff DevSecOps Engineer, you will design, build and run secure, scalable platform infrastructure for mission-critical applications across cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. You will lead automation of software delivery, infrastructure provisioning and security, working alongside software engineers, cybersecurity teams and customer stakeholders.

The role calls for deep Kubernetes knowledge, along with cloud-native tooling, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD automation and GitOps. You will build resilient platforms, help developers work more productively, and keep application delivery secure and compliant across the software lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Write and maintain Infrastructure as Code for distributed, containerized and cloud-native applications across their lifecycles.
• Set up and run Kubernetes platforms on AWS and other cloud environments.
• Build and tune secure, fast CI/CD pipelines that cover testing, security scanning, deployment and release management.
• Grow GitOps workflows with current tooling to support continuous software delivery.
• Deploy, configure and support platform-hosted services for DOW tenant application teams across several impact levels.
• Create and maintain highly available, production-grade Kubernetes clusters that meet security and operations standards.
• Provide secure multi-tenant access to cloud-native services.
• Write automation that makes the platform more reliable, scalable and efficient to operate.
• Set up and maintain Kubernetes networking with Calico, Cilium or equivalent Container Network Interfaces (CNIs).
• Deploy and support observability and logging with Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, Loki, Kibana and related tools.
• Work with software, platform and security engineers to build security into every stage of development.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience in DevOps, DevSecOps, platform engineering, site reliability engineering or a related field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience running and securing production Kubernetes and Docker environments.
• Experience provisioning, hardening and maintaining compliant Kubernetes clusters.
• Solid grasp of Kubernetes architecture, Helm Charts and container networking with Calico, Cilium or similar solutions.
• Experience running stateful, highly available, distributed services on Kubernetes.
• Experience with AWS or other cloud platforms that support enterprise workloads.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, Ansible or similar frameworks.
• Experience setting up and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with GitLab Runners.
• Experience with software packaging, artifact repositories and build automation for distributed applications.
• Experience implementing monitoring and logging with Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, Loki, Kibana or similar observability tools.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills in complex production environments.
• Must hold one of the following certifications: CISM, CISSP, Security X, CISA, CCISO, CCNP Security or GLSC.
• Must hold CKA, CKAD, CKS or a similar certification.
• Must live locally in the Scott AFB, IL area.
• Active Secret clearance required.
• Highly preferred: experience with Maven, Gradle, NPM and Yarn for package and dependency management.
• Highly preferred: experience implementing and supporting an Istio service mesh.
• Highly preferred: experience supporting enterprise cloud platforms and large-scale infrastructure.
• Highly preferred: proficiency in automation and scripting with Python or Go.
• Highly preferred: experience designing, provisioning, troubleshooting and optimizing complex CI/CD pipelines.
• Highly preferred: experience with GitOps platforms such as Argo CD or Flux.
• Highly preferred: experience supporting DoD, federal or highly regulated production environments.

Conditions

Hybrid role, on-site at Scott Air Force Base.

Foreign and domestic travel of up to 35% to customer sites.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and considers all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

Benefits

• Salary is highly competitive.
• Healthcare, dental and vision coverage is fully covered.
• 401(k) with a company match.
• Take-as-needed PTO plus 11 paid holidays.
• Education and training benefits.
• Generous referral bonuses.
• Additional benefits are also offered.