Senior DevOps Engineer (NOAA badge required)

This is a contingent position, and employment is dependent upon Element 84 receiving the contract award and the candidate successfully obtaining a NOAA badge. We anticipate hiring multiple people for this position.

About Element 84

Element 84 is a woman-owned small business that works with public, private, and non-profit sector clients to develop geospatial data processing pipelines & build software that helps answer big questions about our health, our infrastructure, and our changing planet. We solve challenging problems across a wide range of industries, but our super power is cloud-based geospatial data processing, remote sensing, and Earth science systems. Our headquarters is located in Alexandria, VA and we have a satellite office in Philadelphia, PA. Element 84 also supports a large remote workforce from a variety of other states.

A Few Other Things You Should Know

• Element 84's values are: We Invest in Each Other, We are Reliable, and Our Work Benefits our World.

• Element 84 works on meaningful projects that are challenging-from a technical, people, and team perspective. We make an impact on large projects through our leadership and expertise, both formal and informal.

• Element 84 values life outside of work. We offer parental leave for everyone and support each other through family challenges like medical problems, adoptions, and new babies.

• Element 84 has had a flexible work schedule since our founding in 2010.

• Element 84 is committed to fostering a culture of curiosity and respect for all individuals as we constantly strive to create a work environment where everyone feels welcome and supported.

About You

You are curious about the world, are constantly learning, driven to lead (formally or informally), and have a strong work ethic. You're interested in solving impactful problems in science, medicine, and other projects that have a societal good. You can work independently or with a team, prioritize your projects, and be effective without micromanagement.

You'll care about writing. Our team is remote and written communication is essential. In addition to caring about a well-crafted email and a succinct conference abstract, you understand that good writing is good design and engineering.

About the Role

Element 84 is seeking a highly experienced and motivated Senior DevOps Engineer with a strong background in architecting reliable, scalable cloud systems and a proven record of utilizing infrastructure as code in complex deployments to support our innovative projects.

In this role, you'll be instrumental in leading the design, implementation, and operation of cloud-native solutions for complex operational systems, collaborating closely with technical teams and customers.

The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in designing, deploying, and supporting enterprise-grade software within cloud environments, with a strong emphasis on infrastructure as code principles. While direct experience with geospatial applications isn't required, a curiosity and aptitude for working in this domain will be beneficial.

What You'll Be Working On

• Leading the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and secure cloud-native solutions on AWS.

• Collaborating with security experts to translate organizational security requirements into secure and compliant cloud implementations.

• Developing and maintaining infrastructure-as-code to manage and provision infrastructure across numerous Azure and AWS accounts, ensuring consistency and efficiency.

• Maintaining and optimizing CI/CD automation pipelines to facilitate rapid and reliable software deployments.

• Crafting automation scripts in Python, Bash, JavaScript, and other relevant languages to streamline operational workflows.

• Contributing to the development and maintenance of infrastructure supporting Generative AI applications on domain-specific datasets.

• Automating the creation and management of front and back-end applications, pipelines, security tooling, etc.

• Defining and advocating for best practices and standards for DevOps success across Element 84 and our customer organizations.

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in software development, with 3+ years specifically focused on Cloud Technologies.

• Strong, hands-on experience with IaC is a must, including writing, maintaining, and troubleshooting complex configurations for cloud environments.

• Strong experience developing in one or more programming languages (e.g., Python, Bash, JavaScript).

• Demonstrable experience designing, deploying, and managing infrastructure and services on a major cloud platform.

• Ability to clearly document and communicate intricate architectural concepts at various levels, including delivering presentations, creating visual representations of architectures, and writing white papers.

• Demonstrated experience in negotiating tradeoffs between critical factors such as security, performance, maintainability, and cost.

• Proven ability to multitask and effectively prioritize work across competing demands and multiple customers.

• Extensive experience working within an Agile Development software team.

• Solid experience with Linux environments.

• Deep understanding of cloud architecture patterns and tradeoffs (e.g., serverless vs. provisioned, managed services vs. self-hosting).

• Expertise with build and deployment automation tools.

• Proficiency with infrastructure monitoring tools (e.g., CloudWatch, AWS Config, Kibana, Splunk, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb, etc.)

• Experience with data storage and data engineering tools and technologies (e.g., ElasticSearch, SQL, NoSQL, DynamoDB, Redshift, Athena, Glue, etc.).

• Experience with networking tools and technologies and troubleshooting issues (CloudFront, Route53, Load Balancers, API Gateway, VPCs, NACLs, etc.).

• Technical cloud certification (e.g., AWS Solutions Architect Associate/Professional, AWS DevOps Engineer Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure DevOps Engineer Expert) or willingness to obtain one.

• Active NOAA CAC badge.

• This position requires that applicants be a US Person (US citizen or legal permanent resident) and authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Preferred Qualifications

• AWS Solutions Architect, AWS DevOps, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, and/or Certified Kubernetes Administrator certifications.

• B.S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field (equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of a degree).

• Experience with Generative AI technologies.

• Experience working in regulated contexts (e.g., NIST 800-53, PCI, HIPAA).

• Experience with authentication and authorization technologies (e.g., SAML, SSO, AWS Cognito, JWT, OAuth, OPA, Ranger).

• Demonstrated ability to proactively learn and integrate new technologies into existing workflows.

• Familiarity with geospatial data processing, analysis, or visualization tools and concepts.

• Experience using containerized workloads for local development and enterprise deployments (e.g. docker, EKS, EKS-automode, minikube, podman)

• Experience with data warehousing or data lakehouses (e.g. Databricks or Snowflake)

Additional Information

Paying attention to who we are as a company-people, family members, friends, and colleagues-is our primary focus at Element 84. There are lots of ways to run a company, and, for us, we prioritize wanting to come to work, being around people we enjoy, taking on big things with people you trust, and sharing our achievements as a team.

• You’ll get credit when things go right and we’ll have your back when things go wrong.

• We only take on work that is challenging and right for us. There are projects we will turn down and the team has a say.

• We may be a small company, but we have big company benefits meant to support the idea that we're here for the long term and happiness comes from much more than where you work.

• We have an extraordinary retention rate because we hire extraordinary people. We hope that’s you.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary Range: $145,000 - $180,000 / year (Full-time, Salaried)

• Bonus Potential: Eligible for performance- and company profit-based bonuses.

• Total Rewards: Base pay is just one part of the Element 84 compensation package. Final offers are tailored based on your technical skillset, relevant experience, domain knowledge, certifications, and location.

• Comprehensive Benefits: Full coverage details, retirement matching, and perks are listed below.

Location & Remote Work

Remote candidates are encouraged, but only in states/localities where E84 is already set up for business. Applications will only be considered if candidate is located in one of the following states: AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, IL (excluding Chicago), IN, KS, MD, MI, MN, MT, NH, NJ, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TX, VA, or VT.

Benefits Offered

• Competitive medical, dental and vision benefits

• Life Insurance, Short & Long Term disability insurance

• Voluntary Accident, Critical Illness & Hospital Insurance

• 401(k) and Roth 401(k) retirement plans with a fixed 3% of salary employer contributions (paid regardless of employee participation)

• Health savings account with a company contribution

• Flexible spending accounts (medical, dependent care and transportation)

• Company-paid parental leave after one year of employment

• Flexible work schedules

• Paid employee assistance program

• Paid sick leave

• 6 paid floating holidays per year

• 4 weeks + 1 day Paid Vacation per calendar year

• Cell phone stipend

Element 84 is an equal opportunity employer.