Lead DevOps Engineer

SAIC•Annapolis Junction, MD

About The Position

SAIC is seeking a Lead DevOps Engineer to join their mission-driven team. The role involves managing the stability, security, and scalability of systems that power complex data transformation workflows and a web-based user interface. The Lead DevOps Engineer will be embedded within an engineering organization of over 25 developers and will lead a small, agile DevOps/SysAdmin team responsible for end-to-end infrastructure, including bare-metal and AWS environments, as well as Kubernetes deployments. This role requires collaboration with software teams to architect robust systems, support development processes, and maintain metrics for system uptime and performance. The position also involves mentoring team members in modern automation tools like Ansible, Terraform, and Podman, as well as testing and deployment strategies. The project is known for its technical stability, team cohesion, and deep integration into mission-critical systems, offering an opportunity to make meaningful contributions in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Requirements

Bachelors and fourteen (14) years or more experience; Masters and twelve (12) years or more experience; PhD or JD and nine (9) years or more experience.
TS/SCI with polygraph.
Deep knowledge of AWS (EC2, EKS, ECS, Lambda, Secrets Manager) alongside bare-metal and MASH environments.
Proficient with Kubernetes, Podman, Ansible, and Terraform.
Hands-on expertise managing and maintaining GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
Solid understanding of the Elastic Stack (Logstash, Filebeat, Elasticsearch), MongoDB, Redis, and Graph databases (e.g., DGraph).
Experience with Cisco networking, CNO concepts, and completing SSP accreditations.
Data Pipelines: Experience with Apache NiFi installations and migrations.

Responsibilities

Lead, direct and mentor the daily tasks of two system administrators.
Collaborate with and support the larger team of 25+ software engineers.
Provide guidance, advice, and assistance for overall system design and setup, working closely with software engineering teams.
Facilitate low-to-high development lifecycles, ensuring smooth progression and deployment across secure environments.
Maintain system platforms and the health of all servers (EC2, MASH, bare metal), production systems, and development environments.
Facilitate the migration of Apache NiFi installations and other services from a MASH environment to an AWS cloud-based architecture.
Architect cloud environments utilizing a broad suite of AWS tools, including EKS, ECS, Lambdas, and Secrets Manager.
Manage containerized environments utilizing Kubernetes deployments and Podman.
Oversee network configuration and performance utilizing Cisco networking solutions.
Oversee system maintenance, security protocols, Cyber Network Operations (CNO) standards, and System Security Plan (SSP) accreditations.
Ensure complete observability of the system, including automation, monitoring, alerting, backup, and disaster recovery strategies using the Elastic Stack (Logstash, Filebeat, etc.).
Maintain and optimize the deployment automation processes and CI/CD pipelines within GitLab.
Perform database administration and optimization for NoSQL and specialized data stores, including Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Redis, and graph databases (e.g., DGraph).