Job description

The Department of Management's Division of Information Technology (DoIT) is seeking a highly skilled Lead DevOps Engineer/Upskilling Partner with a strong background in both hands-on DevOps work and leadership. This role is key to driving automation, process improvements, and migrations within our organization, supporting Iowa schools and stakeholders through a large portfolio of data collection and reporting applications. As a key member of our team, you'll be instrumental in driving our DevOps initiatives and delivering secure, high-quality technical solutions to our customers. The ideal candidate will play a critical role in migrating applications from TFS/ADO to GitHub, establishing DevOps best practices, and mentoring developers. This position is for someone who excels in technical problem-solving and can guide teams through DevOps transformations. This remote position requires attendance during standard business hours Monday through Friday, with initial on-site presence strongly preferred for orientation and team onboarding. As the Lead DevOps Engineer, you will: • Design and implement highly scalable DevOps processes to support the development and deployment of large-scale applications. • Lead initiatives focused on automation, CI/CD, and cloud technologies, centralizing code repositories into GitHub to streamline development workflows. • Assess and improve coding and review practices, ensuring a high standard of code quality and security by integrating automated scanning tools into the development cycle. • Proactively address technical debt before it escalates and ensure continuous improvement of development processes. • Optimize processes around code branching, merging, and releases to facilitate seamless and efficient deployments. • Automate build and deployment processes, reducing manual effort and increasing operational efficiency. • Enhance unit test and integration test coverage, ensuring application reliability and performance. • Mentor and coach the team on new DevOps skills, driving the adoption of best practices in development and deployment. Key Responsibilities: • Lead DevOps Strategy (60-70% hands-on, 30-40% leadership): You’ll balance hands-on work with leadership, focusing on automating CI/CD pipelines, establishing best practices, and leading development teams through migrations. • Application Migration: You will lead the migration of applications from TFS/ADO to GitHub. Experience with GitHub Actions, GitHub Enterprise, and Azure DevOps will be critical for success. You’ll design and implement migration strategies that include moving wikis, project management boards, and source code repositories. • DevOps Automation & Optimization: You’ll build scalable, automated solutions for builds, testing, and deployments, as well as optimize branching, merging, and release processes. • Mentorship & Technical Guidance: You will mentor and coach developers, leading technical debates, and providing guidance on best practices for development, security, and process automation. • Security and Code Quality: You will integrate security scanning tools into the development pipeline (e.g., SAST, SCA, GitHub Advanced Security) and lead efforts to improve code quality through automated tests, code reviews, and continuous integration practices. • Cloud and Infrastructure Support: While the primary focus will be on Azure, you should have experience with other cloud providers, infrastructure as code (IaC), and setting up and managing CI/CD pipelines from scratch. Requirements: • C#, ASP.NET, MVC, .NET Core (8+ years): Strong experience in the Microsoft technology stack is required. This role is primarily DevOps-focused, but you’ll need to understand the code well enough to mentor teams and drive best practices. While .NET Core isn’t currently in use, you may help introduce it into future projects. • Security Practices (8+ years): You will implement security practices like static code analysis and encryption. Experience with security tools (e.g., SonarQube, Checkmarx, GitHub Advanced Security) and maintaining compliance with standards (e.g., ADA) is a plus. • Azure DevOps, GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Actions (5+ years): A deep understanding of Azure DevOps, GitHub, and CI/CD tools is required. You will lead the migration from TFS/ADO to GitHub, building out automation and best practices from scratch. • Test Automation & TDD (5+ years): You’ll implement automated testing, improve test coverage, and ensure reliability through unit and integration tests. Teams are not yet using tools like Selenium, NUnit, or xUnit, and you’ll be responsible for setting these up. • T-SQL and MS SQL (8+ years): Strong skills in query tuning and database automation are required. The focus will be on query optimization and automating database-related tasks, not necessarily architecture design. • Technical Leadership & Mentorship (5+ years): Experience in mentoring and leading developers is crucial. You’ll establish and enforce code review standards, guide development practices, and provide technical leadership in DevOps strategies. • Code Quality & Security Scanning Tools (4+ years): Familiarity with tools such as GitHub Advanced Security, Dependabot, and Snyk will help you integrate security and code quality into the pipeline. • Code Branching, Merging, and Release Optimization (5+ years): Experience in optimizing the code branching and release management processes is essential. • TypeScript/Angular, Client-Based Authorization (2+ years): While the immediate focus is not on front-end technologies, knowledge of TypeScript and Angular is a plus. You may work with teams that use these technologies in the future. Interview Process and Key Focus Areas: • Technical Skills Emphasis: During the interview, we will place equal emphasis on DevOps expertise, leadership capabilities, and cloud architecture. Specifically, we will assess your experience in migrating Microsoft applications from TFS/ADO to GitHub, the extent of your automation work, process improvements in past projects, and your ability to influence technical decisions. • Problem-Solving: You will be tested on problem-solving skills, including automating deployments for large-scale applications and resolving complex pipeline issues. Expect to write pseudo-code as part of the process. • Prohibition of AI Use During Interviews: To ensure the authenticity and fairness of our candidate evaluations, the use of AI tools during interviews is strictly prohibited. We are vigilant in monitoring the interview process and have implemented measures to identify any use of AI-generated responses. Candidates suspected of relying on such tools face immediate disqualification. Application Process: • We’re seeking a Lead DevOps Engineer/Upskilling Partner who has a passion for improving processes, mentoring teams, and driving automation. If you have strong DevOps experience, a deep technical background, and leadership skills, we encourage you to apply.

Requirements