Senior Devops Engineer (Azure & GCP)

Senior DevOps Engineer

Location: Bethesda MD (Onsite)
Type:12-Month Contract-to-Hire
Reporting to: Sr. Manager Platform Engineering

Position Summary

We are seeking a high-caliber Senior DevOps Engineer to join the Technology team at one of the nations largest IT consulting this pivotal role you will lead the evolution of our multi-cloud infrastructure with a primary focus on Kubernetes (AKS and GKE) security reliability and cost-efficiency.

As a senior member of the Platform Engineering team you will bridge the gap between development and operations by building an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) via Backstage orchestrating complex data pipelines with Argo Workflows and driving the adoption of AI-driven automation. This role requires a software engineering mindset toward infrastructurebuilding CLIs operators and APIs that empower our developer community.

Key Responsibilities

Cloud & Kubernetes Governance

• Multi-Cloud Operations: Own the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters across Azure (AKS) and Google Cloud (GKE) managing topology networking RBAC and policy enforcement.
• Cost & Performance Optimization: Establish standards and guardrails to ensure infrastructure is both highly available and cost-efficient.
• Orchestration: Design and manage large-scale data pipelines and scheduled jobs using Argo Workflows (distinct from CI/CD workflows).

Developer Experience & CI/CD

• Internal Developer Platform (IDP): Lead the growth of Backstage creating Golden Paths reusable templates and self-service options to streamline engineering workflows.
• Pipeline Engineering: Design and continuously improve CI/CD ecosystems using Jenkins and GitHub Actions emphasizing pipeline-as-code artifact provenance and automated rollback strategies.

Data Systems & Observability

• Distributed Data Ops: Operate and tune high-performance data systems including Kafka CockroachDB (Postgres) Couchbase and Elasticsearch.
• Observability Engineering: Raise the bar for system visibility using Prometheus Grafana and Tempo for distributed tracing; define actionable SLOs and alerting thresholds.

Platform Development & Innovation

• Software Engineering: Build internal tools controllers and APIs using Go and C#/.NET to harden and simplify the platform.
• AI Initiatives: Identify and integrate practical AI use cases that deliver measurable impact to the software development lifecycle.

Required Qualifications

Professional Experience

• Experience: 58 years of experience in DevOps Site Reliability or Platform Engineering.
• Cloud & K8s Mastery: Proven expertise in multi-cloud Kubernetes operations (AKS/GKE) including upgrades identity management and multi-tenant isolation.
• Automation & CI/CD: Extensive background in Jenkins and GitHub Actions with a focus on environment promotion and secrets management.

Technical Competencies

• Platform Tooling: Direct experience with Backstage (Service Catalog/Scaffolder) and Argo Workflows (DAG design and resource quotas).
• Data Systems: Hands-on experience operating distributed data systems (Kafka CockroachDB Elasticsearch) with a focus on replication and disaster recovery.
• Development Skills: Proficiency in at least two of the following: Go or C#/.NET.
• Education: Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).

Core Attributes

• Mentorship: Ability to mentor junior engineers and partner effectively with cross-functional Security and Product teams.
• Resilience: Proven ability to manage complex systems under pressure and define actionable runbooks for production incidents.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin disability or protected veteran status.