Senior DevOps Engineer

Role: Senior DevOps Engineer

Location: Fairfax, VA

Salary: $140,000 - $210,000 (DOE) plus 50% employer package

Security Clearance: Active Top Secret (TS) with SCI Eligibility

We are supporting a leading organization within the US Defense and Intelligence community in recruiting an experienced Senior DevOps Engineer to support mission-critical infrastructure, cloud-native applications and enterprise systems.

This opportunity is suited to a hands-on DevOps professional with extensive experience in Kubernetes, Linux Systems Administration, Docker and Infrastructure Automation, working within complex, security-focused environments.

The successful candidate will play a key role in deploying, managing and optimising containerised applications across on-premises and cloud infrastructure, supporting application development teams and ensuring the reliability, scalability and security of critical systems.

Advanced, hands-on Kubernetes experience is essential and represents the primary technical requirement for this position.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, administer and troubleshoot enterprise Kubernetes clusters and containerised workloads.
• Support the migration, deployment and ongoing management of applications across on-premises and cloud environments.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure automation using Python, Bash, Ansible and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) technologies.
• Build, manage and optimise Docker containers and cloud-native application environments.
• Support application developers with deployment pipelines, infrastructure provisioning and shared platform services.
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitLab, Jenkins and Git-based workflows.
• Monitor infrastructure performance, availability and resource utilisation using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.
• Administer and troubleshoot enterprise Linux environments, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Essential Requirements

• Active Top Secret (TS) Security Clearance with SCI Eligibility.
• 10+ years of relevant technical experience, ideally within DevOps Engineering, Platform Engineering, Systems Engineering or Infrastructure Engineering.
• Kubernetes expertise, including deployment, administration, troubleshooting and management of production container orchestration environments.
• Strong Linux Systems Administration experience, ideally with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or other RPM-based distributions.
• Practical experience with Docker and containerised application deployment.
• Strong infrastructure automation and scripting capabilities using Python, Bash, Ansible or comparable technologies.
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics or another relevant technical discipline.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform or Terragrunt.
• Configuration management using Ansible or Puppet.
• CI/CD pipeline development using GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins or similar technologies.
• Familiarity with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) technologies and the broader Kubernetes ecosystem.
• Monitoring and observability tools including Prometheus, Grafana and Elastic.
• Experience with VMware, HPE or enterprise virtualisation platforms.
• Storage provisioning, backup and recovery technologies including OpenEBS and Amazon S3.

Benefits Package

• 401(k) Retirement Contribution: 25% employer contribution.
• Individual Benefit Account (IBA): Additional 25% of base salary allocated towards benefits and eligible expenses.
• Up to 8 weeks of PTO.
• Medical, dental and vision coverage
• 100% tuition reimbursement for eligible continuing education.
• Life insurance, flexible working hours and immediate vesting of retirement contributions.

Security Clearance Requirements

Applicants must possess an active Top Secret (TS) clearance with SCI Eligibility at the time of application.

If you're an experienced Senior DevOps Engineer, Kubernetes Engineer, Platform Engineer or Linux Infrastructure Engineer with an active TS clearance and SCI Eligibility, we'd welcome a confidential conversation.

Apply today or contact Elevate Technology Group to learn more about this opportunity within the US Defense and Intelligence community.