Overview
The DevOps Engineer builds and maintains the platform foundation the entire system runs on, owning the event backbone, CI/CD pipelines, and the government cloud environment (GovCloud/IL5). This role ensures the platform is reliable, scalable, secure, and deployable, enabling application, data, and scoring teams to deliver capabilities quickly and safely in a regulated environment.
What you will do
- Build and operate the event backbone (Kafka or equivalent), including topic design guidance, reliability patterns, throughput scaling, and operational monitoring.
- Design, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines that support repeatable, secure builds and deployments across environments.
- Provision and manage the GovCloud/IL5 hosting environment, ensuring it meets program security and compliance expectations.
- Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) for cloud resources, cluster provisioning, network/security configuration, and environment replication.
- Deploy and operate Kubernetes platforms for application and data services, including cluster configuration, upgrades, and workload reliability.
- Establish platform observability (logging, metrics, tracing) and operational readiness (runbooks, alerting, incident response support).
- Partner with security and architecture teams to implement platform security controls (least privilege, secrets management, network segmentation, patching cadence).
- Drive reliability engineering practices: backup/restore, disaster recovery planning, performance testing support, and capacity planning.
What you need to have
- Clearance: Must maintain an active TS/SCI security clearance
- Bachelor's Degree and 5 to 8 years of experience; Master's Degree and 3 to 6 years of experience
- 5+ years of DevOps / platform engineering experience delivering and operating systems in a government cloud environment.
- Strong experience with event streaming architecture and operations (Kafka or equivalent), including production support and performance tuning.
- Demonstrated experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform and/or Ansible) and disciplined configuration management.
- Hands-on experience in AWS GovCloud or Azure Government environments
- Strong Kubernetes experience (deployments, Helm or equivalent packaging, cluster operations, and troubleshooting workload).
- Experience working in compliance-driven environments (e.g., IL5, RMF-aligned controls) with a security-first operations mindset.
What we'd like you to have
Tools & Technical Environment (Preferred/Used)
- Kafka (or equivalent event streaming platform)
- Terraform / Ansible (IaC and configuration management)
- AWS GovCloud or Azure Government
- Kubernetes
Key Behavioral Competencies
- Operational ownership: builds platforms that are supportable, observable, and resilient.
- Automation mindset: eliminates manual steps via IaC and CI/CD discipline.
- Cross-team enablement: designs platforms that help developers move faster with guardrails.
- Calm problem-solving: strong troubleshooting skills under real-world constraints.
About BigBear.ai
BigBear.ai is a leading provider of AI-powered decision intelligence solutions for national security, supply chain management, and digital identity. Customers and partners rely on Bigbear.ai’s predictive analytics capabilities in highly complex, distributed, mission-based operating environments. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, BigBear.ai is a public company traded on the NYSE under the symbol BBAI. For more information, visit https://bigbear.ai/ and follow BigBear.ai on LinkedIn: @BigBear.ai and X: @BigBearai.
BigBear.ai is an Equal opportunity employer all protected groups, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.