IaaS Release Engineer

This IaaS Release Engineer role requires a background in Software Engineering combined with team leadership skills and a diligence in process definition and improvement. The role supports the larger Integrated Combat System (ICS) and manages key DevSecOps and CI/CD processes in collaboration with the NSWC DD Government Technical Direction Agent (TDA).

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership:
  • Build the technical culture, habits, and processes of the team.
  • Lead, coach, and develop a team of multiple engineering groups.
  • Work with the PM to drive clarity in roles and responsibilities for teams, groups, and individuals.
  • Create a healthy and robust operating rhythm to ensure consistent execution across the IaaS pipeline.
  • Set high standards and drive achievement through positive collaboration.
  • Interface with Government and other stakeholders to increase trust and transparency.
  • Establish a shared release operating cadence for priorities, risks, dependencies, and readiness.
• Build Definition, Scope Control, and Pipeline Management:
  • Define, implement, and maintain build and packaging pipelines for bare-metal and virtualized infrastructure components.
  • Standardize hypervisor installation images (e.g., VMware ESXi, KVM/QEMU) using automated tooling like HashiCorp Packer.
  • Maintain version-controlled build definitions for reproducible builds across environments.
  • Define release readiness criteria, checkpoints, approval workflows, and standard artifacts for consistency and auditability.
• Artifact & Configuration Management:
  • Manage the artifact repository lifecycle (e.g., JFrog Artifactory, Azure, Nexus, GIT) for infrastructure deliverables, including OS images, firmware packages, and custom drivers.
  • Establish and enforce semantic versioning and metadata tagging standards.
  • Oversee distribution of golden images, firmware updates, and validated configuration baselines to globally distributed data centers.
  • Maintain version-controlled network configuration files, templates, and structured variables (YAML/JSON) for physical and SDN environments.
  • Validate network change artifacts for syntax, schema compliance, and security policy adherence.
• Change Management & Release Coordination:
  • Act as a liaison to the Government Stakeholders Configuration Control Board (CCB) for infrastructure releases and maintenance windows.
  • Develop roll-out, verification, and roll-back procedures for high-risk infrastructure changes (e.g., hypervisor upgrades, network switch deployments).
  • Maintain comprehensive documentation of release manifests, change logs, and system dependency maps.
  • Oversee release calendars, milestone planning, dependency tracking, and integrated schedules across delivery streams.
  • Ensure release plans include quality validation, environment readiness, launch coordination, rollback strategies, and support preparedness.
• Lifecycle Management and Data-Driven Continuous Improvement:
  • Lead post-release reviews, retrospectives, and root cause analysis to strengthen planning and execution.
  • Coordinate testing, packaging, and validation of hardware-level updates (e.g., BIOS/UEFI, BMC/IPMI, RAID controllers, NICs).
  • Identify, assess, and manage release risks, issues, dependencies, and operational constraints.
  • Drive proactive mitigation planning and promote risks/opportunities to leadership.
  • Define and operationalize release health metrics, KPIs, and dashboards for visibility.
  • Support executive reporting with clear status, actionable risk views, and trend-based insights.
• Cybersecurity & Hardening:
  • Work with the Cyber and System Security team to document and implement best practices.
  • Integrate security scanning tools (e.g., vulnerability scanners, OpenSCAP, InSpec) into build pipelines.
  • Ensure hypervisor and OS images comply with security baselines (e.g., CIS Benchmarks, DISA STIGs).
  • Manage the lifecycle of cryptographic signing keys, certificates, and secrets for infrastructure artifacts.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & Automation:
  • Support Configuration Item Leads in packaging, versioning, and testing IaC modules (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, OpenTofu, Pulumi).
  • Integrate automated testing frameworks (e.g., Terratest, Kitchen-CI, Ansible-lint) into release pipelines.
  • Align IaC release processes with GitOps workflows and state file management best practices.
  • Build automated processes to deploy validated firmware baselines across server fleets.

Requirements

• 10+ years in Release Management, Technical Program Management, or Software Delivery, with 3+ years leading teams in a multi-product software organization.
• Proven experience building or scaling release management functions across multiple technology domains (cloud, mobile, embedded, firmware).
• Track record managing and developing teams, including coaching, performance management, and career development.
• Expertise in release governance, readiness frameworks, Go/No-Go decision-making, and risk/escalation management.
• Working knowledge of CI/CD, DevSecOps, and/or DevOps pipelines, deployment orchestration, and release automation.
• Experience defining release health metrics, KPIs, and dashboards for operational visibility.
• Ability to drive aligned execution across cross-functional boundaries.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• U.S. Citizenship required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting on-premise and offline self-hosted clouds.
• Track record improving CI/CD, DevSecOps, and release tooling at scale.
• Proficiency with Jira, Azure, Confluence, and GitLab.
• Experience with Cyber and System Security.
• Working knowledge of incident management, change control, and operational compliance in production environments.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted release practices (e.g., automated change impact analysis, intelligent deployment gating).
• Agile, SAFe, PMP, or Lean Six Sigma certifications.
• Experience with PI Planning and Risk management.

Benefits

Red River offers a competitive salary, excellent benefits, and an exceptional work environment. Review our benefit offerings here.