DevSecOps Engineer - Expert

Dark Wolf; Herndon (VA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Dark Wolf is seeking an Expert DevSecOps Engineer to architect, maintain, and scale CI/CD tools and infrastructure across the development lifecycle.

You will lead automated security controls, testing frameworks, and compliance programs while guiding high-performing engineering teams in a fast-paced environment. Location: Chantilly/Herndon, VA; salary range reflects specialized expertise.

Qualifications

• Clearance: US Citizen with active TS/SCI and Full-Scope Polygraph.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of progressive engineering experience in CI/CD and enterprise automated pipeline construction.

Responsibilities

• CI/CD Platform Leadership: maintain, optimize, and scale production-grade pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, custom engines).
• Automated Security Engineering: integrate SAST/DAST, dependency auditing, and vulnerability scanning into pipelines.
• Testing Architecture: implement robust automated unit, integration, and UAT testing frameworks.
• Vulnerability & Risk Remediation: identify and remediate security weaknesses with software teams.
• Regulatory Compliance & Security Governance: enforce federal/DoD security regulations and standards.
• Platform & Infrastructure Strategy: define IaC standards and multi-environment deployment frameworks.

Skills

CI/CD concepts

Enterprise Kubernetes

Policy-as-Code

Secrets management

Distributed observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering/related

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab CI/CD

Open Policy Agent (OPA)/Gatekeeper

Kyverno

HashiCorp Vault

OpenTelemetry

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK/OpenSearch

Istio

Linkerd

Falco

Job description

Dark Wolf constructs and deploys data management and analytics solutions for the defense and intelligence communities. We’re proud to boast a world-class engineering team that thrives on rolling up their sleeves to solve your mission’s biggest challenges.

Dark Wolf is seeking an Expert DevSecOps Engineer to serve as a technical anchor, architecting, maintaining, and scaling the Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools, pipelines, and infrastructure used across the development lifecycle. In this role, you will lead the integration of security and operational resilience, ensuring total observability, automated compliance, and software assurance across complex systems.

We are seeking a seasoned leader and problem solver with a proven ability to deliver superior results while guiding high-performing engineering teams in fast-paced environments.

Key Responsibilities

• CI/CD Platform Leadership: Maintain, optimize, and scale production-grade CI/CD pipelines utilizing platforms such as Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and custom workflow engines.
• Automated Security Engineering: Ensure the seamless integration of automated security controls and scanning processes throughout the pipeline, including static code analysis (SAST), dynamic code analysis (DAST), dependency auditing, and vulnerability scanning.
• Testing Architecture: Implement and maintain robust automated testing frameworks across unit testing, integration testing, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Vulnerability & Risk Remediation: Collaborate directly with software development and security teams to proactively identify, prioritize, and remediate security vulnerabilities and architectural weaknesses in deployed software products.
• Regulatory Compliance & Security Governance: Implement and enforce compliance with relevant federal, DoD, and organizational security regulations and standards.
• Platform & Infrastructure Strategy: Establish enterprise Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) module standards, direct multi-environment deployment frameworks, and lead response strategies for enterprise-level vulnerabilities.

Qualifications

• Clearance: Must be a US Citizen holding an active TS/SCI security clearance with an active Full-Scope Polygraph.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Professional Experience: 10+ years of progressive engineering experience, including deep expertise in CI/CD concepts, methodologies, and enterprise automated pipeline construction.

Core Technical Skills Required for Expert Level

• Enterprise Container Orchestration & Security: Deep experience managing enterprise Kubernetes clusters, authoring NetworkPolicies, implementing Service Meshes (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), and enforcing runtime security (e.g., Falco).
• Policy-as-Code & Guardrails: Experience implementing Policy-as-Code architectures using tools like Open Policy Agent (OPA/Gatekeeper) or Kyverno to automate compliance enforcement before runtime.
• Secrets Management Architecture: Hands-on design and implementation of automated secret lifecycle solutions (e.g., HashiCorp Vault) integrating dynamically into pipelines and runtime platforms.
• Distributed Observability: Proven capability building centralized telemetry stacks leveraging OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK/OpenSearch.

Desired Qualifications

• Programming & Scripting: High proficiency in languages such as Python, Go, Bash, or C/C++.
• Containerization: Comprehensive experience with containerized software engineering practices and runtimes (Docker, Podman, OCI specs).
• Agile Engineering: Proven experience working within and leading Agile/Scrum software development teams.
• Multi-Cloud Expertise: Architecture experience across major cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Security Tooling Ecosystem: Hands-on experience integrating modern security scanners (e.g., SonarQube, Snyk, Trivy, OWASP ZAP, Fortify).

Industry Certifications

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) / Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional
• CompTIA Security+, CISSP, or GIAC DevSecOps Automation (GCSA)

Position Clearance Requirement

US Citizenship with an active TS/SCI security clearance with Full-Scope Polygraph

Location: Chantilly/Herndon, VA.

Target Salary Range: $160,000.00 – $210,000.00 (Commensurate with specialized expertise and technical skillset).

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer Minorities/Women/Veterans/Disabled and other protected categories. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity, confirm US Citizenship, and complete the required employment eligibility verification upon hire.

We are strictly looking for direct, full-time W2 employees. We do not engage with third-party staffing agencies, C2C, or 1099 independent contractors for this role.