Principal DevOps Engineer - Colorado Springs, Colorado

About the role

Davidson is seeking a Principal DevOps Engineer to support the Modeling and Simulation Vistas - Threat and Advanced Simulations Development (MSV-TASD) program. This position is based in Colorado Springs and Schriever Space Force Base, CO, with daily onsite requirements and limited remote/hybrid work available.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines to support frequent, reliable software delivery.
• Automate infrastructure deployment, scaling, and management using configuration management and scripting tools.
• Implement and manage containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Podman), including rootless vs. rootful configurations where appropriate.
• Collaborate closely with development and test teams to improve build, integration, and deployment processes.
• Integrate automated testing and quality/security tools (e.g., static analysis, code quality, coverage) into CI/CD pipelines.
• Monitor system and pipeline performance and implement improvements to ensure reliability and availability.
• Ensure security, compliance, and configuration baselines are implemented and maintained across environments.
• Work with identity and credential management tools (e.g., credential managers, service accounts) to support secure automation and access control.
• Leverage tools such as Jenkins, GitLab Runner, Bamboo, Docker, Podman, SonarQube, Gherkin, and Cucumber to enable efficient, secure, and repeatable software development and delivery.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) discipline from an accredited institution and 5 years of related experience; OR a Master's degree in a STEM discipline and 3 years of related experience; OR a PhD in a STEM discipline and 1 year of related experience.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 10% to support business needs.
• Experience with containerization and container runtime technologies (Docker, Podman, or similar).
• Experience with automated testing and software development pipelines/factories (e.g., unit, integration, or acceptance tests in CI/CD).
• Experience deploying applications in containerized environments.
• Experience with CI/CD and related tools such as the Atlassian tool suite, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, SonarQube, Checkmarx, Coverity, or Jenkins.
• Hands-on experience with Unix/Linux operating systems.
• Active DoD Secret Security Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong experience with Linux administration, shell scripting, and operations in production-like environments.
• Experience implementing and maintaining automated software testing and analysis within CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with hypervisors, virtualized medium- and high-trust environments (e.g., experience working with hypervisors on medium trust environments).
• Experience working with credential and identity management solutions (e.g., credential managers, service accounts, Keycloak or similar technologies) to securely manage non-interactive access.
• Exposure to Kubernetes or infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).
• Experience developing software in a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) environment.
• Experience with Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) and tools such as Gherkin and Cucumber for automated acceptance testing.