DevSecOps Research and Development Engineer

The Pennsylvania State University; State College (Centre County); On-site; USD 76,700 - 129,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage

Robust retirement plans

Paid time off

75% tuition discount for employees and eligible family members

Job summary

A leading research university in State College, PA is seeking a motivated DevSecOps Research and Development Engineer. This role involves designing secure infrastructure solutions, maintaining CI/CD pipelines, and working with cloud technologies. Candidates should have a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Science and experience with DevSecOps tools. The salary range for this position is $76,700.00 – $129,500.00, along with a competitive benefits package including healthcare and tuition discounts.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Science required.
• 2+ years relevant experience for Intermediate Professional role.
• No experience required for Professional role.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement secure infrastructure solutions.
• Perform and review pull requests and unit tests.
• Maintain CI/CD pipelines.
• Configure compute resources and networks.
• Provide demonstrations of work.
• Coordinate with the Agile team daily.

Skills

DevSecOps tools and practices

Linux-based infrastructure and system administration

Infrastructure automation via scripting languages

Cloud-native computing tools (e.g., Kubernetes)

Continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline development

Troubleshooting skills

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or Science

Tools

Ansible

Puppet

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Position Overview

We are seeking a motivated, self‑starting DevSecOps Research and Development Engineer to join our Cloud Technology Advancement Department in the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Penn State University. This position would work out of our State College, PA, location.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement secure, automated infrastructure solutions for high-performance computing environments through Agile software development.
• Work as part of a team to perform and review pull requests, unit tests, and occasional documentation as needed.
• Maintain continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines for frequent, trouble‑free deployments of infrastructure code.
• Configure and optimize various compute resources and networks, including bare metal and virtualized/container environments.
• Provide demonstrations of your work to the internal team and occasionally to external customers.
• Coordinate with the Agile team to identify risks, issues, requirements, and design solutions for project‑level activity on a daily basis.

Required Skills and Experience

• Knowledge of DevSecOps tools and practices.
• Linux‑based infrastructure and system administration knowledge.
• Infrastructure automation via scripting languages such as Ansible or Puppet.
• Interest in cloud‑native computing foundation tools such as Kubernetes.
• Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline development skills.
• Proven troubleshooting skills with the ability to spot issues before they become problems.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• RHEL 8.x or newer.
• Bare metal workstation, server, data center hardware and software experience.
• Configuration management via Git, Bitbucket, or GitLab.
• Container orchestration technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Rancher, or other scaled Kubernetes environments.
• Well‑organized, independent, and ready to work.

Minimum Education, Work Experience & Required Certifications

Research and Development Engineer – Intermediate Professional: Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or Science, 2+ years of relevant experience.  Research and Development Engineer – Professional: Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or Science, no prior relevant work experience required.

Background Checks and Clearances

Employment requires successful completion of background checks in accordance with university policies. Candidates must be able to obtain a U.S. government security clearance; U.S. citizenship is required. A pre‑employment drug screen is also required.

Salary & Benefits

The salary range for this position, including all possible grades, is $76,700.00 – $129,500.00. The proposed salary range may be impacted by geographic differential.

Payroll and benefits: Penn State provides a competitive benefits package for full‑time employees, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage; robust retirement plans; paid time off; and a 75% tuition discount for employees and eligible spouses and children.

EEO Statement

Penn State is an equal‑opportunity employer and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.