Staff Engineer, DevOps & CI/CD Automation

Shield AI; Washington (Washington County); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job description

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

Job Description:

As an engineer on the HMS DevOps/DevEx Team, you will write the automation, configure the environments, and build the CI/CD pipelines that power the software development lifecycle across Hivemind Solutions. Your work is hands-on and focused on engineering maximum velocity, reproducibility, and security into our distributed developer tooling and cloud testing environments.

You will completely automate tool workflows by writing scripts and API integrations connecting GitLab, Jira, and Confluence. You will configure and optimize C , Python, and Node.js compilation pipelines, scale auto-running GitLab runner fleets, manage secure Artifactory container registries, deploy Forge in Azure Gov Cloud, and write custom HMS extensions to our pi-gov GenAI routing harness.

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What you’ll do:

• Write, configure, and maintain robust GitLab CI/CD pipelines and runner environments for C , Python, and Node.js software projects, ensuring fast compilation and test execution.
• Build, test, and deploy automated tooling integrations, webhook dispatchers, and state-change scripts connecting GitLab, Jira, and Confluence to orchestrate release workflows.
• Write custom Python or Bash extensions for our pi-gov harness, configuring secure, audited LLM routing rules and local container configurations.
• Deploy, scale, and configure the Forge simulation and test orchestrator in Azure Gov Cloud, optimizing runner autoscaling and cloud compute consumption.
• Maintain, configure, and secure Artifactory package registries, implementing secure container builds via BuildKit, secret injection, and Entra ID integration.
• Partner with development teams to migrate legacy project build systems to reproducible Nix developer environments, writing default Nix derivations and flake configurations.
• Troubleshoot pipeline failures, broken builds, registry access issues, and system-level configuration drift across development environments.

Required qualifications:

• Typically requires a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Practical experience building, maintaining, and scaling enterprise CI/CD systems, with deep expertise in GitLab CI/CD pipelines and runner infrastructure.
• Direct experience writing scripts (Bash, Python) and utilizing webhooks/APIs to automate and integrate engineering tools (such as Jira, Confluence, and GitLab).
• Hands‑on experience with containerization (Docker, multi‑stage builds) and package managers (such as Conan, Poetry, or Nix).
• Familiarity with deploying and managing application workloads in cloud environments (such as Azure Gov Cloud or AWS).
• Experience with secure software development practices, secret management, and identity providers (Active Directory, Entra ID).
• Solid Linux system administration, networking, and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain an active U.S. SECRET security clearance (U.S. citizenship required).

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$150,000 – $220,000 a year
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Full-time regular employee offer package:

Pay within range listed Bonus Benefits Equity

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.