Senior Azure Cloud & DevOps Engineer – Onsite DC (Secret)

LightFeather; Alexandria (VA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

LightFeather is seeking a cleared Azure infrastructure and DevOps professional to support mission-critical federal IT modernization in Washington, D.C. The role owns secure cloud architecture, infrastructure automation, and compliance operations, working with government stakeholders to keep systems performant and audit-ready. Location is Hybrid: On-site four days per week in Washington, D.C.

20006 with one day telework. Salary ranges from $130,000 to $170,000 annually, based on experience; U.S.

Qualifications

• Active Secret clearance or higher.
• Ability to commute to Washington, D.C. and work onsite four days per week.
• 5+ years of total experience in Cloud Engineering, DevOps, or Systems Engineering.
• 3+ years hands-on with Azure cloud services and infrastructure architecture.
• 3+ years building and managing CI/CD pipelines in production environments.
• 3+ years writing and maintaining Terraform IaC (high-priority skill).
• 3+ years working with GitLab for source control and pipeline management.
• 4+ years of PowerShell scripting for systems automation.
• Demonstrated production experience with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD).
• Working knowledge of federal compliance frameworks: FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, RMF.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and maintain Azure cloud infrastructure including VMs, VNets, Storage, Azure AD, and PaaS services.
• Manage and optimize Azure networking components (VNets, NSGs, Load Balancers, VPN/ExpressRoute connectivity).
• Develop and maintain Terraform templates as the primary IaC tool (critical requirement emphasized by hiring managers).
• Support automation via PowerShell, Bash, YAML/JSON, and GitLab pipelines.
• Deploy, configure, and manage AVD environments including host pools, session hosts, FSLogix profile containers, and Azure AD/M365 integrations.
• Provide troubleshooting and performance optimization for AVD users (explicit customer requirement).
• Build, maintain, and troubleshoot CI/CD pipelines in GitLab.
• Automate cloud operations, system configuration, and monitoring tasks.
• Implement secure cloud practices aligned with federal requirements (RBAC, Key Vault, IAM, encryption standards).
• Ensure compliance with NIST, RMF, FedRAMP, and agency-specific controls.
• Use Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and related tools to analyze system health, diagnose issues, and enforce SLAs.
• Work with engineering, security, and program staff to support ongoing cloud modernization efforts.
• Support onsite collaboration with customer stakeholders (note: role cannot be performed remotely long-term).

Skills

DevOps practices

Cloud engineering concepts

Systems engineering

Tools

Azure Cloud Services

Terraform

GitLab

PowerShell

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

LightFeather is seeking a cleared Azure infrastructure and DevOps professional to support mission-critical federal IT modernization in Washington, D.C. The role owns secure cloud architecture, infrastructure automation, and compliance operations, working with government stakeholders to keep systems performant and audit-ready. Location is Hybrid: On-site four days per week in Washington, D.C.

20006 with one day telework. Salary ranges from $130,000 to $170,000 annually, based on experience; U.S.