Principal DevOps Engineer

POSITION SUMMARY

The Principal DevOps Engineer is the organization’s senior individual contributor for enterprise DevOps and platform engineering. This role defines and evolves cloud, automation, software delivery, and operational reliability patterns that align Architecture and business strategy. The position leads the design of secure, scalable Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) platforms; establishes reusable infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, GitOps, observability, and governance capabilities; and sets technical standards adopted across Development, Architecture, Security, Network, Infrastructure, and Operations. Azure DevOps is the organization’s standard source-control, build, and deployment platform for application and infrastructure delivery across both cloud environments. The Principal DevOps Engineer serves as a hands-on technical authority, leads complex cross-functional initiatives and proofs of concept, mentors engineers, and uses measurable outcomes to continuously improve developer experience, delivery performance, resiliency, security, and operational efficiency.

FUNCTIONS OF THE JOB

Essential Functions

Own the enterprise technical strategy and reference architecture for DevOps, platform engineering, cloud infrastructure, software delivery, and engineering automation, translating business and Architecture direction into actionable standards and roadmaps.

Design, implement, and support secure, resilient, scalable cloud infrastructure and shared platform services across Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), including Kubernetes, containers, networking, identity, compute, storage, data, and other cloud-native capabilities.

Architect and govern infrastructure as code using Terraform, including reusable modules, versioning, automated validation and testing, remote state management, policy checks, controlled promotion, and lifecycle management.

Define and evolve enterprise CI/CD and software-delivery patterns using Azure DevOps as the organization’s standard source-control, build, and deployment platform, including Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, quality gates, artifact management, release controls, progressive delivery, rollback, and traceability across Azure and AWS environments.

Lead GitOps architecture and deployment practices using Azure DevOps, Argo CD, Helm, Kubernetes, and related technologies; establish secure, repeatable patterns for containerized and cloud-native workloads across Azure and AWS.

Create automation and platform capabilities using PowerShell, Bash, Python, APIs, SDKs, and event-driven integrations to reduce manual work, improve consistency, and increase engineering throughput.

Establish Git and repository governance, including branching strategies, pull-request and code-review standards, release practices, dependency management, and software supply-chain controls.

Design and enforce multi-cloud governance and security controls across Azure and AWS, including policy as code, identity and access integration, secrets and certificate management, network and workload security requirements, resource organization and tagging, cost governance, compliance evidence, and automated guardrails.

Define the enterprise observability strategy across Azure and AWS using Datadog and OpenTelemetry as cross-platform capabilities, together with cloud-native telemetry services such as Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Amazon CloudWatch; establish standards for logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, service-level indicators, actionable alerting, and operational telemetry.

Lead reliability engineering practices across Azure and AWS, including service-level objectives, capacity planning, performance engineering, high availability, disaster recovery, operational readiness, incident response, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action follow-through.

Monitor and analyze key delivery, reliability, security, and platform-adoption metrics; identify systemic constraints and lead improvements that produce measurable business and engineering outcomes.

Chair or provide technical authority for architecture reviews, platform design decisions, change-control standards, and quality and testing requirements for software and infrastructure builds and deployments.

Lead complex technology evaluations and proofs of concept; document findings, risks, total-cost and operational trade-offs, and recommendations for leadership.

Create and maintain reference architectures, implementation guides, reusable templates, technical standards, decision records, training materials, and operational procedures for varied technical and executive audiences.

Provide expert consultation, technical leadership, coaching, and mentoring to DevOps, platform, development, and infrastructure engineers without requiring direct people-management responsibility.

Facilitate alignment across Development, Architecture, Security, Network, Infrastructure, and Operations teams; resolve cross-domain technical issues and influence adoption of enterprise standards.

Participate in development, testing, deployment, implementation, and continuous-improvement activities across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Lead multiple concurrent initiatives of high scope, ambiguity, risk, and organizational impact; communicate status, decisions, dependencies, and risks clearly to leadership and stakeholders.

Ensure completeness, accuracy, accessibility, and currency of required technical documentation.

Support organizational values and cultivate a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, diversity, inclusion, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement.

Perform other duties as assigned.

POSITION QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant industry experience.

Experience

Ten (10) or more years of progressive experience in DevOps, Cloud Engineering, Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering, software engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical field.

Five (5) or more years designing, implementing, managing, and supporting enterprise cloud infrastructure and cloud-based platforms in Microsoft Azure and/or Amazon Web Services (AWS), with demonstrated ability to design and operate across multi-cloud environments.

Demonstrated experience functioning as a senior technical lead, principal engineer, architect, or equivalent authority for enterprise-scale DevOps or platform engineering initiatives.

Hands-on experience designing and operating distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, containerized workloads, and production services in a large enterprise environment.

Progressive achievement in job history, including successful delivery of complex, cross-functional initiatives with measurable technical or operational outcomes.

Required Technical Expertise

Expert-level infrastructure-as-code experience with Terraform, including reusable module design, testing, state and dependency management, upgrade strategy, drift detection, and governed deployment workflows.

Expert-level design and implementation of CI/CD and release-engineering systems using Azure DevOps, including Azure Repos and Azure Pipelines, for application and infrastructure delivery across Azure and AWS.

Advanced Kubernetes and container-platform expertise, including Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Helm, GitOps with Argo CD, workload security, cluster operations, upgrades, scaling, networking, storage, and troubleshooting.

Advanced automation and software-development capability using PowerShell, Bash, Python, APIs, SDKs, and Git-based development practices.

Deep understanding of Azure and AWS governance, policy as code, identity and access management, secrets and certificate automation, network security, DevSecOps, software supply-chain security, resource organization, tagging, and cloud cost controls.

Advanced multi-cloud observability and reliability engineering experience using Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Amazon CloudWatch, or comparable tooling, including SLOs, actionable alerting, incident response, and root-cause analysis.

Expert understanding of SDLC automation, Agile delivery, design and development practices, testing standards, change control, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and operational readiness.

Ability to develop reference architectures and technical standards that balance security, reliability, developer experience, cost, maintainability, and speed of delivery.

Leadership and Professional Capabilities

Operates independently in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and exercises sound judgment when requirements are incomplete or priorities conflict.

Influences technical direction across teams and levels through credibility, facilitation, clear decision frameworks, and evidence-based recommendations.

Communicates complex technical concepts effectively to engineering, security, architecture, operations, business, and executive audiences.

Demonstrates exceptional analytical, systems-thinking, troubleshooting, problem-solving, presentation, and technical-writing skills.

Mentors engineers, promotes knowledge sharing, and raises engineering quality through reviews, standards, pairing, and practical guidance.

Demonstrates strong attention to detail, accountability, collaboration, open communication, and commitment to engineering excellence.

Must be willing to work outside normal business hours, including weekends, when required to support releases, incidents, or critical initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience establishing an internal developer platform, paved-road or golden-path capabilities, self-service infrastructure, or developer portals.

Experience applying FinOps practices, cloud cost allocation, capacity optimization, and unit-cost or consumption metrics to platform decisions.

Experience with enterprise risk, regulatory, audit, or compliance requirements and automated evidence collection.

Relevant professional certification such as Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional, AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate, or comparable credentials.

MACHINES, TOOLS, EQUIPMENT AND WORK AIDS

Personal computer and associated software; Microsoft Azure; Amazon Web Services (AWS); Azure DevOps; Azure Repos; Azure Pipelines; Terraform; Kubernetes; AKS; EKS; Argo CD; Helm; PowerShell; Bash; Python; APIs and SDKs; Datadog; Azure Monitor; Application Insights; Amazon CloudWatch; OpenTelemetry; artifact-management, security, collaboration, and documentation platforms; and standard office equipment.

LICENSE(S) / CERTIFICATIONS REQUIRED

None required. Relevant advanced Azure, AWS, DevOps, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code certifications are preferred.

JOB DESCRIPTION NOTICE

This job description does not state or imply that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee occupying this position. Employees may be required to follow other job-related instructions and perform other job-related duties as requested, subject to all applicable state and federal laws. “Commonly associated” is not intended to mean always or only. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

COMPENSATION

The salary range is $140,000-$160,000 USD per year, depending on experience, qualifications, and skills. This role may also be eligible for incentives, benefits, and other rewards as part of BMI’s total rewards package.