Senior Devops Engineer (Azure & GCP) at ASCENDING LLC – Bethesda, Maryland

Location: Bethesda, MD (Onsite)
Type: 12-Month Contract-to-Hire
Reporting to: Sr. Manager, Platform Engineering

We are seeking a high-caliber Senior DevOps Engineer to join the Technology team at one of the nation’s largest IT consulting agencies. In this pivotal role, you will lead the evolution of our multi-cloud infrastructure, with a primary focus on Kubernetes (AKS and GKE) security, reliability, and cost-efficiency.

As a senior member of the Platform Engineering team, you will bridge the gap between development and operations by building an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) via Backstage, orchestrating complex data pipelines with Argo Workflows, and driving the adoption of AI-driven automation. This role requires a "software engineering" mindset toward infrastructure—building CLIs, operators, and APIs that empower our developer community.

• Multi-Cloud Operations: Own the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters across Azure (AKS) and Google Cloud (GKE), managing topology, networking, RBAC, and policy enforcement.
• Cost & Performance Optimization: Establish standards and guardrails to ensure infrastructure is both highly available and cost-efficient.
• Orchestration: Design and manage large-scale data pipelines and scheduled jobs using Argo Workflows (distinct from CI/CD workflows).

• Internal Developer Platform (IDP): Lead the growth of Backstage, creating "Golden Paths," reusable templates, and self-service options to streamline engineering workflows.
• Pipeline Engineering: Design and continuously improve CI/CD ecosystems using Jenkins and GitHub Actions, emphasizing pipeline-as-code, artifact provenance, and automated rollback strategies.

• Distributed Data Ops: Operate and tune high-performance data systems, including Kafka, CockroachDB (Postgres), Couchbase, and Elasticsearch.
• Observability Engineering: Raise the bar for system visibility using Prometheus, Grafana, and Tempo for distributed tracing; define actionable SLOs and alerting thresholds.

• Software Engineering: Build internal tools, controllers, and APIs using Go, Node.js, and C#/.NET to harden and simplify the platform.
• AI Initiatives: Identify and integrate practical AI use cases that deliver measurable impact to the software development lifecycle.

• Experience: 5–8 years of experience in DevOps, Site Reliability, or Platform Engineering.
• Cloud & K8s Mastery: Proven expertise in multi-cloud Kubernetes operations (AKS/GKE), including upgrades, identity management, and multi-tenant isolation.
• Automation & CI/CD: Extensive background in Jenkins and GitHub Actions with a focus on environment promotion and secrets management.

• Platform Tooling: Direct experience with Backstage (Service Catalog/Scaffolder) and Argo Workflows (DAG design and resource quotas).
• Data Systems: Hands-on experience operating distributed data systems (Kafka, CockroachDB, Elasticsearch) with a focus on replication and disaster recovery.
• Development Skills: Proficiency in at least two of the following: Go, Node.js, or C#/.NET.
• Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).

• Mentorship: Ability to mentor junior engineers and partner effectively with cross-functional Security and Product teams.
• Resilience: Proven ability to manage complex systems under pressure and define actionable runbooks for production incidents.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.