Solutions Operations Lead in Silver Spring, Maryland at FM Talent Source

Job Description

FM Talent Source is an enterprise that provides business and workforce solutions to help organizations nationwide overcome business challenges. Our clients include federal, state and local government agencies, Fortune 500 Companies, and non-profit organizations. Founded in 2004, we have a strong history of providing recruitment strategies and utilizing effective project and quality management methodologies to ensure our clients success.

We are seeking one Solutions Operations Lead for a full-time contract opportunity with FM Talent Source for one of our valued clients.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Seeking an experienced Solutions Operations Lead to oversee secure, scalable, and compliant cloud operations, deployment automation, DevSecOps practices, and infrastructure reliability across mission-critical environments. This role is ideal for a hands-on technical leader with deep expertise in AWS cloud operations, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD automation, security, compliance, and platform governance, along with proven experience leading and mentoring engineering teams.

The Solutions Operations Lead will be responsible for driving operational excellence across cloud and hybrid environments, standardizing deployment and release processes, strengthening security and compliance posture, and ensuring resilient, audit-ready platforms that support critical business and mission outcomes. This position requires close collaboration across engineering, security, networking, architecture, and program delivery teams to ensure stable, secure, and scalable operations in regulated environments.

Cloud Operations, Infrastructure Management & Reliability

• Lead day-to-day cloud and platform operations across AWS and hybrid environments, ensuring availability, resiliency, performance, and mission continuity.
• Oversee the provisioning, deployment, hardening, patching, and lifecycle management of cloud infrastructure and application environments across development, test, pre-production, and production.
• Establish and enforce operational standards for environment readiness, configuration management, backup and recovery, monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
• Drive continuous improvement in platform reliability, operational efficiency, and service maturity through automation and standardization.

DevSecOps, Deployment Automation & Infrastructure as Code

• Lead the design, implementation, and optimization of DevSecOps pipelines and deployment automation using tools such as AWS CDK/Terraform/CloudFormation, Git, Jenkins/GitLab, GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline, Docker, and related technologies.
• Promote Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices to standardize provisioning, improve repeatability, and reduce manual configuration drift across environments.
• Establish secure, scalable, and auditable CI/CD processes that support rapid delivery while maintaining strong quality controls and release discipline.
• Define and oversee deployment strategies, environment promotion processes, release readiness standards, and change control procedures.

Security, Compliance & Operational Governance

• Partner with cybersecurity and compliance teams to implement secure operational practices aligned with NIST, CIS, FISMA, FedRAMP, and zero-trust
  principles.
• Ensure infrastructure, deployment workflows, and operational processes are audit-ready and support logging, monitoring, vulnerability remediation, access control, and evidence collection requirements.
• Lead remediation planning and operational risk reduction efforts to improve the organization’s security and compliance posture.
• Support ATO-aligned operational activities, control implementation, and readiness documentation, as applicable.

Leadership, Team Management & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Lead and mentor a team of DevSecOps, cloud, and platform engineers, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.
• Provide direction for operational priorities, issue resolution, automation efforts, and deployment support activities across the team.
• Collaborate with engineering, architecture, networking, application, and security stakeholders to align operations with delivery timelines and enterprise standards.
• Communicate operational status, technical risks, recommendations, and improvement opportunities clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Documentation, Process Improvement & Operational Excellence

• Develop and maintain high-quality operational documentation, including SOPs, runbooks, architecture diagrams, deployment procedures, and secure configuration baselines.
• Define and track operational KPIs, deployment metrics, service health indicators, and compliance-related measures to support transparency and informed decision-making.
• Identify opportunities to improve reliability, security, efficiency, and team performance through process refinement, tooling enhancements, and automation.
• Support business continuity, disaster recovery, and operational readiness planning across supported solutions and environments.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding with Guidehouse. Candidates with an ACTIVE PUBLIC TRUST or SUITABILITY are preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• Minimum TEN (10) years of experience in cloud operations, infrastructure engineering, DevOps/DevSecOps, or enterprise platform operations.
• Minimum THREE (3) years of experience in a technical leadership role, including leading or mentoring a team of engineers responsible for cloud, DevOps, platform, or security operations.
• Strong hands-on experience with AWS cloud services and hybrid infrastructure environments.
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Terraform or CloudFormation or AWS CDK, for provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure.
• Strong experience building and operating CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation using tools such as Git, GitLab, GitHub Actions, AWS SDK, AWS CodePipeline, and Docker.
• Strong understanding of DevSecOps principles, secure SDLC practices, release automation, and operational governance.
• Experience implementing and supporting security and compliance controls aligned with frameworks such as NIST, CIS, FISMA, FedRAMP, and zero-trust.
• Experience with system logging, monitoring, alerting, dashboards, and operational observability to support reliability and incident management.
  Strong scripting and automation skills using Python, Bash, or similar languages.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex operational, deployment, and infrastructure issues across cloud and hybrid enterprise environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, security, operations, and executive stakeholders.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional, AWS Solutions Architect, AWS Security Specialty, or equivalent certification.
• CompTIA Security+, CISSP, or related cybersecurity certification.
• Experience supporting federal or highly regulated environments, including ATO, FISMA, FedRAMP, or similar compliance requirements.
• Experience with container platforms and orchestration, such as Kubernetes or Amazon EKS.
• Experience with secrets management, policy-as-code, vulnerability scanning, security automation, and compliance tooling.
• Experience supporting high-availability architectures, disaster recovery, and continuity of operations planning.
• Experience with monitoring, observability, and SIEM tools such as CloudWatch, Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana, or similar platforms.
• Experience supporting data platforms or analytics environments, including AWS-native data services or platforms such as Databricks.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools to improve delivery velocity while maintaining code quality, testing discipline, and secure engineering standards.

Compensation Range: The salary range provided is determined by market value, internal equity, and the candidate's experience and qualifications. Offers will be extended within this range, though not all candidates will receive an offer at the upper limit.