Application Monitoring Engineer

D2 Technical Services; Springfield (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 175,000; Full time

Job summary

D2 Technical Services is seeking a Senior Application Monitoring Engineer to own the observability strategy for critical applications. You will design monitoring architecture, define SLIs/SLOs, and mentor engineers to treat monitoring as a product.

You’ll lead end-to-end monitoring design, surface signals before problems, and drive improvements across distributed systems and cloud deployments. This role requires a proactive, ownership-driven mindset and strong collaboration with DevOps, infra,

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in application monitoring, observability, or site reliability engineering.
• Experience configuring alerts and adjusting thresholds.
• Strong grasp of distributed systems and microservices, tracing requests across services.
• Scripting or programming experience (Python, Bash) to automate monitoring configurations.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Participation in on-call rotations and incident response processes; familiarity with Splunk, ELK, Grafana, or Prometheus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain end-to-end application performance monitoring.
• Define and maintain SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets; build dashboards and alerts to reduce noise.
• Lead or support triage and root-cause analysis during incidents across distributed systems.
• Drive continuous improvement of the observability stack and tooling.
• Mentor engineers to embed monitoring as a core capability in services from the start.
• Collaborate with DevOps/SRE, infrastructure, and app teams to align monitoring with deployments.

Skills

Observability

Site Reliability

Distributed Systems

SRE Practices

Python Scripting

Cloud Platforms

On-call Experience

Tools

Datadog

New Relic

Dynatrace

Splunk

ELK

Grafana

Prometheus

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

CloudFormation

Job description

**ACTIVE TS/SCI SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED**

We're looking for a Senior Application Monitoring Engineer to own and evolve our application observability strategy. You'll be the go-to expert for keeping critical business applications visible, healthy, and performant — designing monitoring architecture, driving down mean time to detection and resolution, and mentoring other engineers on observability best practices. This is a largely autonomous role for someone who thinks proactively about failure modes and treats monitoring as a product, not an afterthought.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain end-to-end application performance monitoring using platforms like Dynatrace, instrumenting applications and services so that the right signals surface before customers notice a problem
• Define and maintain SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets in partnership with engineering and product teams, and build dashboards and alerting that reduce noise while catching what actually matters
• When incidents happen, you'll lead or support triage and root-cause analysis, using distributed tracing and APM data to pinpoint issues across complex, distributed systems.
• Drive continuous improvement of the observability stack itself — evaluating new tools, refining alert thresholds, and reducing alert fatigue across the engineering organization
• Serve as a technical mentor, helping other engineers build monitoring into their own services from the start rather than bolting it on later
• Partner closely with DevOps/SRE, infrastructure, and application development teams to make sure monitoring coverage keeps pace with new deployments and architectural changes

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in application monitoring, observability, or site reliability engineering, with hands‑on expertise in at least one major APM platform (Datadog, New Relic, or Dynatrace) — deep familiarity with more than one is a strong plus
• Experience configuring alerts and adjusting thresholds
• Solid grasp of distributed systems, microservices architecture, and how to trace a request across services, containers, and cloud infrastructure
• Experience with scripting or programming (Python, Bash, or similar) to automate monitoring configuration and build custom integrations
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes) is expected
• Understanding of the fundamentals of APIs, databases, and networking well enough to diagnose issues across the full stack
• You've participated in on‑call rotations and incident response processes, and ideally have exposure to complementary tools like Splunk, ELK, Grafana, or Prometheus
• Communicate clearly under pressure, can explain a complex incident to both engineers and non‑technical stakeholders, and take genuine ownership of the systems you monitor

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.) is a plus
• Relevant certifications (Datadog, New Relic, AWS/Azure/GCP)

Additional Information

• All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
• Compensation is unique to each candidate and relative to the skills and experience they bring to the position. The salary range for this position is typically $150-175k. This does not guarantee a specific salary as compensation is based upon multiple factors such as education, experience, certifications, and other requirements, and may fall outside of the above‑stated range.
• Highlights of our benefits include Health/Dental/Vision, 401(k) match, Accrued PTO, STD/LTD/Life Insurance, Referral Bonuses, professional development reimbursement, and more!

D2 Technical Services is committed to a merit‑based recruitment process and encourages applications from all qualified individuals. As a Veteran‑Owned Small Business, we particularly welcome applications from veterans who have the requisite skills and experience. Job applicants that are interested in one of our openings and may require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, should contact us to request an accommodation.