DevSecOps Engineer - Junior

DESE Research, Inc. is seeking a DevSecOps Engineer to update, operate, secure, and sustain the development infrastructure used by the Cyber Works Division. This role enables DESE employees and subcontractor teammates to develop and deliver Cyber Science & Technology solutions to the warfighter. The position emphasizes reliable development platforms, on-premises systems, observability, containerized services, networking, storage, and cloud resources. CI/CD pipeline support and development is also an important part of the overall mission.

Job Details:

The DevSecOps Engineer will support the full lifecycle of the division's development infrastructure, from physical servers and storage through operating systems, platform services, container workloads, monitoring, identity, networking, and Microsoft Azure resources. The engineer will maintain a dependable and secure environment for approximately 20-30 developers, including DESE employees and subcontractors.

The successful candidate will combine hands-on systems administration with infrastructure automation and practical troubleshooting. This person will work closely with software engineers, cyber researchers, systems engineers, and technical leadership to improve availability, repeatability, security, capacity, and developer experience. Responsibilities may include planned upgrades, incident response, hardware replacement, deployment automation, documentation, and CI/CD enhancement work.

Responsibilities:

• Administer, update, secure, and troubleshoot Ubuntu Linux servers and development services supporting Cyber Works Division projects.
• Operate and maintain GitLab and GitLab Runners, including access, upgrades, runner capacity, integrations, backups, and routine platform health.
• Deploy and sustain containerized services by building container images and using Docker Compose or Kubernetes, as appropriate for the environment.
• Automate repeatable infrastructure configuration, deployment, patching, and operational tasks with Ansible and supporting scripts.
• Implement and maintain observability using Prometheus, Loki, Promtail, and Grafana, including dashboards, log collection, alerting, capacity visibility, and service health monitoring.
• Operate supporting platform services such as Keycloak and Nginx, including identity integration, reverse proxy configuration, certificate management, and secure service exposure.
• Administer on-premises infrastructure, including server hardware, operating systems, firmware, storage, TrueNAS, backups, and recovery procedures.
• Configure, deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot RAID volumes; replace or install server components when required; and coordinate maintenance to minimize disruption.
• Manage networking equipment and connectivity for development systems, including configuration, segmentation, addressing, troubleshooting, and documentation.
• Manage Microsoft Azure resources used by development teams, with attention to access control, security, reliability, cost awareness, and lifecycle management.
• Support infrastructure for AI-assisted development and model-serving workloads, including vLLM and OpenCode, when required by project needs.
• Monitor infrastructure health and capacity, respond to outages and degraded performance, perform root-cause analysis, and implement corrective actions.
• Maintain system diagrams, configuration records, operational procedures, inventories, recovery documentation, and knowledge-sharing materials.
• Collaborate with developers and project teams to evaluate infrastructure needs, plan upgrades, onboard services, and remove technical blockers.
• Support secure software delivery practices, vulnerability remediation, secrets handling, configuration management, and compliance with applicable customer and organizational requirements.
• Maintain and improve CI/CD pipelines and build automation where needed, while prioritizing the broader reliability and sustainment of the development environment.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Hands-on experience administering Linux-based development infrastructure, preferably Ubuntu Linux, in a multi-user engineering environment.
• Experience operating and troubleshooting on-premises servers, storage, networking, and supporting infrastructure services.
• Experience building container images and deploying containerized applications or services.
• Experience with Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or a comparable container orchestration approach.
• Experience automating infrastructure configuration or operational tasks with Ansible or a comparable infrastructure automation tool.
• Experience with Git-based development workflows and a source-code management platform such as GitLab.
• Experience implementing or supporting infrastructure monitoring, centralized logging, dashboards, and alerting.
• Working knowledge of networking, identity and access management, reverse proxies, TLS certificates, system hardening, backups, and recovery.
• Ability to diagnose complex issues across hardware, operating systems, networks, storage, containers, and application services.
• Ability to plan and execute infrastructure changes with clear documentation, effective communication, and appropriate risk management.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating with developers, subcontractors, technical leadership, and customer stakeholders.
• Active Secret security clearance or the ability to obtain and maintain one.

Technology Environment: 

Operating Systems & Platforms

Ubuntu Linux; GitLab; GitLab Runners; Microsoft Azure

Containers & Automation

Ansible; container image builds; Docker Compose; Kubernetes

Observability

Prometheus; Loki; Promtail; Grafana

Identity & Web Services

Keycloak; Nginx

Storage & Hardware

TrueNAS; RAID; on-premises servers; networking equipment

AI Development Infrastructure

vLLM; OpenCode

About DESE

For the past 44 years, DESE has provided industry-leading technical and engineering solutions in the fields of Defense, Energy, Space, and Environment. As a small, family-oriented business, DESE provides a compelling benefits package including a generous profit-sharing plan, competitive salaries, and perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to work alongside talented engineers leveraging cutting-edge technologies to solve complex and engaging problems.

Why Employees Love Working for DESE

At DESE, we are committed to creating a company that is known for its respect and care for employees. We understand that happy employees are what keeps our business going, and we strive to provide the best opportunities for each individual working on our team. Benefits include:

• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance with affordable premiums
• Flexible work schedules
• Two flexible spending account options
• Company-paid life insurance with options for employee-paid additional coverage
• Performance bonus program
• Education reimbursement program
• Company-paid personal leave for approved philanthropic activities
• Vacation, sick, and holiday leave
• Robust 401(k) profit-sharing plan
• Opportunities for internal promotions
• Employee referral incentive program
• Rewards and gifts for service anniversaries

Disability Accommodation for Applicants

DESE Research, Inc. is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in its job application procedures. If you have any difficulty using our online system and need an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at hrandsecurity@dese.com or 256-837-8004 x123.