Lead DevOps Engineer

Lead DevOps Engineer with experience mentoring and upsing experience.

Must be technically sound with TFS and ADO transformations to GitHub.

Must be a savvy business communicator who can influence stakeholders and lead teams.

*** NOTE: Only submit candidates who have the following 3 MUST HAVES***

• The candidate must have TFS (Team Foundation Server) to GitHub transformation experience.
• The candidate must have ADO (Azure DevOps) to GitHub transformation experience including wikis and dashboards
• The candidate must be both technically sound as well as a savvy business communicator who can influence stakeholders and lead team.

The Department of Managements Division of Information Technology (DoIT) is seeking a highly sed Lead DevOps Engineer/Upsing Partner with a strong background in both handson 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 youll be instrumental in driving our DevOps initiatives and delivering secure highquality technical solutions to our customers. The ideal candidate will play a critical role in migrating applications from TFS/ADO to GitHub elishing DevOps best practices and mentoring developers. This position is for someone who excels in technical problemsolving and can guide teams through DevOps transformations. This remote position requires attendance during standard business hours Monday through Friday with initial onsite presence strongly preferred for orientation and team onboarding but not required. Note: This is a 9 MONTH PROJECT with the potential to extend beyond based on project needs.

As the Lead DevOps Engineer/Upsing Partner you will:

• Lead DevOps Strategy (6070% handson 3040% leadership): Youll balance handson work with leadership focusing on automating CI/CD pipelines elishing 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. Youll design and implement migration strategies that include moving wikis project management boards and source code repositories.
• DevOps Automation & Optimization: Youll 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.

Role Clarity and Team Structure:

• The role is a mix of handson DevOps (6070%) and leadership (3040%). You will be expected to guide developers in adopting DevOps practices review their code base and provide guidance on improvements through pair programming or proofofconcepts (POCs).
• There is no dedicated DevOps team so you will lead the effort by working closely with the development team to implement DevOps practices.

Cloud Focus and Infrastructure:

• While this role is primarily focused on TFS and Azure (with Azure Pipelines already in use) experience with GitHub Actions and migrating pipelines from other tools is essential. You should also have strong handson experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform ARM templates) though infrastructure work will be more prominent later on in the role.

Key DevOps Initiatives:

• Youll be responsible for elishing new CI/CD pipelines and migrating teams from TFS/ADO to GitHub. The initial focus will be on setting up standards for automated processes and improving code quality and security. There is a clear need for integration of security tools (e.g. SonarQube Dependabot Snyk) and setting up GitHub repository security policies.

Testing Development and Technical Debt:

• The development teams do not currently practice automated testing and youll be responsible for setting this up. Similarly there is no formal tracking or management of technical debt and youll work with developers to identify and mitigate it. Youll also be responsible for creating and enforcing new code review standards and improving testdriven development (TDD) practices.

Requirements:

• C# ASP.NET MVC .NET Core (8 years): Strong experience in the Microsoft technology stack is required. This role is primarily DevOpsfocused but youll need to understand the code well enough to mentor teams and drive best practices. While .NET Core isnt currently in use you may help introduce it into future projects.
• Security Practices (8 years): You will implement security practices like static code ysis and encryption. Experience with security tools (e.g. SonarQube Checkmarx GitHub Advanced Security) and maintaining compliance with standards (e.g. ADA) is a plus.
• TFS Azure DevOps GitHub Enterprise GitHub Actions (5 years): A deep understanding of TFS 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): Youll 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 youll be responsible for setting these up.
• TSQL and MS SQL (8 years): Strong ss in query tuning and database optimization and automation are required. The focus will be on query optimization and automating databaserelated tasks.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship (5 years): Experience in mentoring and leading developers is crucial. Youll elish 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 ClientBased Authorization (2 years): While the immediate focus is not on frontend 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 Ss Emphasis: During the interview we will place equal emphasis on DevOps expertise leadership capabilities and cloud architecture. Specifically we will ess 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.
• ProblemSolving: You will be tested on problemsolving ss including automating deployments for largescale applications and resolving complex pipeline issues. Expect to write pseudocode 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 AIgenerated responses. Candidates suspected of relying on such tools face immediate disqualification.

Application Process:

• Were seeking a Lead DevOps Engineer/Upsing Partner who has a pion for improving processes mentoring teams and driving automation. If you have strong DevOps experience a deep technical background and leadership ss we encourage you to apply.