Senior/Staff DevOps Engineer (U.S. Air Force)

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.

We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.

The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, DevOps engineers work with developers throughout the software development life cycle to ensure code can be reliably and repeatedly released on demand with a high degree of quality. They understand both software development and operations, with expertise in areas such as networking, security, test automation, and continuous integration/deployment.

Skylight is partnering with a U.S. Air Force program office that runs a portfolio of civil engineering systems. These systems serve users across civil engineering, security forces, and services, including readiness managers, range personnel, and fire and emergency services. Releases are slow today. Regression testing is manual, security review happens after development finishes, and code freeze to production can take a month or more. We’ll move the program to an outcome-driven model with test automation and security built into the pipeline, starting with migrating the first application onto a DoD software factory. Leadership wants this office to become the model other Air Force offices adopt.

In this role, you’ll build the delivery pipeline that makes faster, safer releases possible, with security scanning and test automation built in from the start rather than bolted on at the end.

What to know going in

Your first 30 days are about working with the Skylight team and government personnel, learning how the program office gets changes to users today, and understanding where testing and security slow things down. This is new work that replaces a traditional support model, so part of the job is coaching your government partners to keep these practices running after we leave. Expect to work alongside government engineers and other contractors, with tools and processes changing as the work gets underway.

This role is contingent on Skylight being awarded the underlying contract. If we’re not awarded the contract, we’ll let you know promptly and discuss whether there are other opportunities that fit.

What you’ll do

• Build and run CI/CD pipelines with security scanning, SBOM generation, and automated testing built in
• Help migrate the first application onto a DoD software factory, and assess pipeline options for the rest of the portfolio
• Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering practices such as simple design and automated testing
• Protect sensitive data by applying security and privacy best practices
• Work with security engineers to produce the evidence needed for continuous authorization
• Pair with and coach government engineers and incoming military developers so modern practices stick after we leave

What we’re looking for

Basic qualifications

• Understand the general concepts of modern software development and can work closely with software engineers
• Able to work in a cloud-centric world, which includes managing disparate, interconnected systems and ensuring the availability, reliability, and resiliency of these systems
• Can enable teams to deliver value to users and the business continuously through CI/CD pipelines, including integrated security scanning
• Know how to build secure, compliant applications and defend against common vulnerabilities
• Can work with software engineers to instrument applications and configure infrastructures for monitoring, metrics, alerting, logging, auditability, and compliance
• Know how to create and maintain your infrastructure as code and standardize deployment processes
• Experience working in a government or regulated environment with formal security authorization (ATO)
• Experience working on cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering, ops) in iterative delivery
• A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams
• A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with a DoD software factory (Cloud One, MDaaS, Platform One, or similar), including migrating applications onto on…