Principal DevOps Engineer — On-Prem Cloud & Kubernetes Lead

Northrop Grumman; Colorado Springs (CO); On-site; USD 104,000 - 155,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Plan

Savings Plan

Paid Time Off

Education Assistance

Training and Development

Flexible Work Arrangements

Job summary

Northrop Grumman Space Systems—Missile Defense Integration seeks a Principal DevOps Engineer (X-Lab) to work on Schriever Space Force Base, CO. You will deploy and operate on-premises cloud and Kubernetes, manage NKP/OpenShift clusters, and automate infrastructure with Ansible.

This role requires a DoD Secret clearance and living onsite. You will lead CI/CD pipelines with GitLab, implement Helm charts, and ensure secure, scalable deployment of mission-critical systems for national defense.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Systems, Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related field, with 5 years of experience; or Master’s with 3 years; or 9 years experience in lieu of degree.
• Current DoD 8140 certification at IAT Level II or higher required at time of application and throughout contract.
• Active DoD-issued Secret clearance required to start.
• Experience with virtualization technologies such as VMware, OpenStack, or Nutanix.
• Linux and/or Windows Server administration experience.
• Scripting with Bash, Python, PowerShell, or Ansible.
• Containerization and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Proven ability to design, implement, and manage on‑premises cloud and Kubernetes platforms.

Responsibilities

• Deploy, maintain, and manage on-premises cloud clusters (Nutanix OpenShift) and NKP/OpenShift environments.
• Scale enterprise Kubernetes clusters using NKP and OpenShift.
• Deploy applications and middleware with Helm charts and Kubernetes operators.
• Utilize Ansible for infrastructure automation and configuration management.
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines with GitLab and GitLab Runners.
• Monitor and optimize infrastructure changes and performance with proactive measures.

Skills

DevOps

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Ansible

GitLab

CI/CD

Helm

Scripting (Python/Bash)

Linux

Windows Server

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in CS/CE/SE or related field

Master’s degree in related field

Tools

Nutanix NKP

Red Hat OpenShift

VMware

OpenStack

Docker

Job description

Northrop Grumman Space Systems—Missile Defense Integration seeks a Principal DevOps Engineer (X-Lab) to work on Schriever Space Force Base, CO. You will deploy and operate on-premises cloud and Kubernetes, manage NKP/OpenShift clusters, and automate infrastructure with Ansible.

This role requires a DoD Secret clearance and living onsite. You will lead CI/CD pipelines with GitLab, implement Helm charts, and ensure secure, scalable deployment of mission-critical systems for national defense.