Senior/Staff DevOps Engineer (DoD)

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.

We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.

The work we do matters.

About the job

Skylight is hiring for a cross-functional team supporting a high-impact Department of Defense (DoD) digital modernization effort. This initiative focuses on strengthening product leadership, human-centered design, and systems engineering across multiple agile product lines that deliver secure DevSecOps capabilities to mission-critical users. The program supports numerous digital services, ranging from developer enablement platforms to container repositories and edge computing tools.

As a member of this engagement, you’ll help stand up a team that brings unbiased product strategy, scalable service design practices, and rigorous systems thinking to one of the most technically complex ecosystems in the federal government. Your work will shape how this organization aligns its value streams to customer needs, improves enterprise architecture and planning, and builds internal capacity through enablement of its civilian and military leaders.

Skylight’s team will support multiple agile product lines and deliver measurable improvements in team alignment, efficiency, and delivery outcomes. This is a unique opportunity to help modernize how the government builds and scales software, with direct impact on national security outcomes.

What you’ll do

Engineer resilient, secure infrastructure to support agile product teams delivering services at IL2–IL5 classification levels

Provide hands-on systems engineering leadership and support including creating documentation, diagrams, and models aligned with DoD architectural frameworks

Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines that enable continuous delivery of containerized applications, particularly those using the Big Bang stack

Collaborate with DevSecOps teams to assess backlog items and estimate level of effort needed for implementation

Implement and advocate for secure-by-default DevSecOps practices, including automated vulnerability scanning and remediation

Automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration management, and standardize deployment processes

Support onboarding and knowledge-sharing activities to build capacity within government and contractor teams

Contribute to standardized architectural patterns and playbooks to align product lines to common delivery and security practices

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

Experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration in production environments

Proficiency in designing and maintaining secure CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, Jenkins)

Familiarity with container security tools like Trivy or Anchore, and container hardening best practices

Experience deploying to or operating within AWS GovCloud or other DoD-authorized cloud environments

Knowledge of the Big Bang DevSecOps stack ( and ecosystem (e.g., Istio, Keycloak, GitLab)

Ability to model and document complex system interactions using modern systems engineering techniques

Understanding of IL2–IL5 DoD compliance and security requirements

Familiarity with tools and practices to enable monitoring, logging, auditability, and operational visibility

Ability to work cross-functionally with product managers, designers, and government stakeholders

Ability to obtain a Common Access Card (CAC), including successful completion of a DoD background investigation

Nice-to-have qualifications

Experience writing clean, reusable code in at least one programming language

Ability to support capacity-building through enablement, documentation, and knowledge transfer

Experience contributing to open-source software or using open-source-first approaches in government environments

Experience with application development, particularly web development and testing frameworks

Federal systems experience supporting large-scale, modular DoD systems or DevSecOps platforms

Civic tech background. Prior involvement in the civic tech space

Remote teamwork. Experience collaborating effectively with distributed teams

Existing or prior possession of a CAC with completed DoD background check

Don’t meet 100% of the criteria but think you can do the job? We’d love to chat anyway! We’re on a mission to build diverse teams, and studies have shown that women and marginalized folks are less likely to apply to jobs if they don’t check every box.

Other requirements

U.S. work location. All work must be performed within the U.S. (excluding territories), and certain federal contracts require U.S. citizenship.

Work authorization. You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.

Background check. You may be required to successfully complete a company background check.

Federal contract qualifications. Some roles may require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a fully remote position.

Care package

Salary

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a DevOps Engineer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

Associate DevOps Engineer: $90,000–$125,000

DevOps Engineer I: $120,000–$140,000

DevOps Engineer II: $135,000–$160,000

Senior DevOps Engineer: $150,000–$185,000

Staff DevOps Engineer: $170,000–$203,000

Principal DevOps Engineer: $180,000–$230,000

Benefits

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance

Short-term and long-term disability insurance

Life and AD&D insurance

Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account

Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period

Paid time off, including 20 vacation days, 11 federal holidays, and flexible sick leave

Up to 12 weeks paid time off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents

Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options

Business development / sales bonuses

Referral bonuses

Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development

Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases

Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)

Dollar-for-dollar charity donation matching, up to $500 per year

Access up to $1,000 before payday to cover emergency expenses

Flexible, remote-friendly work environment

An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

We want you to have a great interview experience with us! Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.

Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.

If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at .

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We're an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, work-related injury, covered veteran status, political ideology, marital status, or any other factor that the law protects from employment discrimination.