Azure DevOps Administrator & SDLC Process Analyst

C5MI Insight

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Azure DevOps (ADO) Administrator & SDLC Process Analyst serves as the system administrator for C5MI’s ADO environment and the day-to-day steward of its SDLC framework. This role is responsible for ADO configuration and governance, including process customization, boards, work items, queries, dashboards, area paths, iterations, teams, and Azure Test Plans. It also provides active coaching to delivery teams (Delivery Leads, Solution Architects, and Functional Consultants) to ensure ADO usage aligns with C5MI’s SDLC standards and CMMI Development Level 3 readiness requirements. The role is critical to achieving C5MI’s targeted CMMI L3 certification in 2027, a requirement for federal contracting. Additionally, the Administrator advises Delivery and PMO leadership on ADO setup for new engagements—ensuring appropriate board structures, area paths, iteration cadence, work item types, and test plans—and serves as the primary support contact for ADO while bridging Process & Systems Excellence (IMS), the PMO, and Delivery.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related discipline with 3-5 years of related experience—or no degree with 5-7 years of equivalent professional experience in lieu of degree.
3+ years of hands-on Azure DevOps (or equivalent: Jira/Confluence/GitLab) administration experience — including process customization, work-item type editing, custom fields and rules, picklists, and area / iteration path management.
Demonstrated experience with ADO queries (WIQL), shared dashboards, and reporting; familiarity with the ADO REST API for bulk operations.
Hands-on experience with Azure Test Plans — test plan / test suite structure, test case authoring, test execution, and integration with the work-item traceability model.
Practical understanding of an SDLC framework (Agile, CMMI, or similar) with the ability to translate process requirements into work-item structure and rules.
Strong attention to detail and process orientation; comfortable enforcing standards and identifying drift before it becomes a finding.
Excellent written and verbal communication; able to explain tooling and process expectations clearly to mixed audiences (engineers, functionals, project managers, customers).
Ability to coach peers on process and tooling — patient, instructional approach rather than gatekeeping.
Self-directed; able to prioritize across multiple projects and request streams simultaneously.
Must be able to travel up to 10% throughout the year to attend in-person meetings as needed.
Must be able to obtain and maintain a government clearance.

Nice To Haves

Working knowledge of and compliance discipline for CMMI Development Level 3 — exposure to a Level 2 or Level 3 appraisal, evidence preparation, or organizational process-improvement implementation. This is a meaningful plus given C5MI's 2027 L3 target.
Experience supporting SAP delivery work (EWM, TM, or other modules) — understanding of transports, configuration vs custom development, and SAP-specific work-product patterns.
Experience supporting federal / DoD contract work — familiarity with CMMC, 8570/8140 controls, DLA / DoD vocabulary, and the artifact discipline those contracts require.
Power BI and/or SQL skills sufficient to build self-service dashboards over ADO and adjacent data.
com administration experience (or equivalent project-management tool integration with ADO).
ServiceNow, SAP Solution Manager (SOLMAN), or other customer-tool exposure — sufficient to set up reliable cross-reference conventions.
ITIL Foundation, ISO 9001 / 27001, or PMP/PMI-ACP certifications.
Scripting fluency (PowerShell, Python, or Node.js) for ADO automation and bulk operations.
Prior exposure to consulting or professional-services delivery environments.

Responsibilities

Administers the C5MI Azure DevOps organization end-to-end: projects, area paths, iteration paths, Teams (and their backlog / sprint configurations), security groups, permissions, integrations, and licenses.
Maintains inherited process templates (Agile and CMMI variants): custom fields, rules, picklists, work-item types, and form layouts; ensure rules enforce required-field discipline.
Maintains the C5MI Golden Templates (the reference work-item trees for each SDLC tier) and updates them whenever the SDLC framework or supporting guidance changes.
Stands up new project environments using the standard clone-and-tailor procedure; validate that each new project carries the correct tier, custom-field values, area-path structure, and team configuration before delivery teams begin work.
Builds and maintains shared queries, charts, and dashboards for PMO, IMS, and Delivery use (traceability coverage, gate readiness, defect aging, tier-compliance status, training currency, throughput, and similar).
Administers Azure Test Plans: test plan structures, test suites, test configurations, parameter sets, and shared test step libraries; coordinate with QA-activity owners on test-case organization.
Advises delivery and PMO leadership on the right ADO shape for new teams and engagements — boards, area paths, iteration cadence, team boundaries, work-item types, Test Plan organization, and dashboard layouts.
Translates the SDLC framework, tiering model, and customer-specific requirements into concrete ADO configuration choices.
Documents the trade-offs of common setup decisions (single-project vs multi-project, team boundaries by capability vs by customer, sprint cadence, etc.) so teams make informed choices and avoid rework.
Participates in project kickoffs to confirm the ADO setup matches the engagement's tier, customer constraints, and reporting needs.
Configures and maintains Kanban and Sprint boards for each delivery project: columns, swim lanes, WIP limits, card rules, and styles.
Enters and triages work items as needed: converts incoming requests (emails, customer tickets, cross-references from external systems) into properly structured ADO work items linked to the right parent (Feature, User Story / Requirement, or Task).
Maintains backlog hygiene: stale-item review, duplicate detection, link-integrity checks, and required-field completion across all work-item types in use (Features, User Stories / Requirements, Tasks, Test Cases, Test Plans/Suites, Bugs, Risks, Reviews, Change Requests).
Enforces work-item discipline so the C5MI custom-field schema is fully populated: tier on each Feature, requirement type on each User Story / Requirement, phase on each Task, severity and origin on each Bug, gate identifier on each Review.
Audits ADO state against C5MI's SDLC framework and the assigned tier; produces a regular compliance report for PMO and IMS.
Verifies bidirectional traceability at the tiers where it is mandated: every in-scope requirement has at least one Test Case, and every defect links back to the artifact it affects; flags and remediates gaps with the responsible Delivery Lead or Solution Architect.
Verifies gate Reviews are created, populated with evidence, and signed off at the required phase transitions (both customer-mandated gates and C5MI internal phase / cutover gates).
Coaches Delivery Leads, Solution Architects, Functional Consultants, and quality-assurance activity owners on correct ADO usage in the context of the SDLC framework; provide a 1:1 onboarding session for new assignees in their first week.
Supports IMS-led process-quality-assurance inspections by pre-running audit queries, identifying findings, and tracking remediation to closure.
Maintains the Templates area path and per-project area paths; ensure reports are not run against template / reference work items.
Monitors work-item status and progression: identifies work items in 'Active' state beyond expected duration, work items missing acceptance evidence, and work items closed without required artifacts.
Validates that assigned resources are completing their work items correctly: required fields populated, parent and test links in place, descriptions meet the depth required by the assigned tier, evidentiary matter attached for completed Test Cases.
Surfaces drift to the responsible Delivery Lead and the PMO early — before it becomes a gate failure or an audit finding.
Maintains the cross-reference convention between ADO work items and the project schedule / plan, and between ADO and any customer-mandated tools (incident systems, change-management tools, document repositories) so the audit trail across systems is intact.
Serves as the first-line support contact for ADO questions across Delivery, PMO, IMS, and Client Account leadership; triages and routes deeper issues to Microsoft support or the relevant process owner as needed.
Onboards new hires and project-team members to ADO: cover navigation, work-item creation, query and dashboard authoring, board interaction, Test Plan use, and the SDLC conventions specific to their role.
Maintains internal ADO knowledge-base / runbook content; capture FAQs and recurring questions as candidates for future tooling or training improvements.
Hosts weekly ADO office hours during pilot periods and as needed for new project teams.
Produces the monthly SDLC adoption and compliance metrics report (tier-assignment compliance, phase-gate evidence completeness, traceability coverage, peer-review coverage, decision-record coverage, lessons-learned contribution rate, and similar).
Contributes observations and proposed improvements to the organizational process-asset repository at project closure; participates in pilot retrospectives and periodic process reviews.
Identifies ADO automation opportunities (scripts, REST-API jobs, Power Automate flows, webhook integrations) and implements them with PMO approval.
Stays current with Microsoft Azure DevOps releases, feature deprecations, and best practices; recommends changes to the C5MI ADO configuration as the platform evolves.
Adheres to all certified processes as part of our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of quality and information security, which includes actively participating in quality assurance activities and ensuring the protection of sensitive information in accordance with our security policies.
Performs other related tasks as assigned by direct supervisor.