The Senior DevOps Build Engineer owns the build and release engineering function at Firestorm Labs, turning source code into secure, reproducible, deployable artifacts across defense and government contract programs. This role designs and maintains CI/CD pipelines, build automation, and artifact management systems, and partners closely with development teams to deliver fast, reliable, and auditable builds. The position sits at the intersection of software engineering and platform operations, focusing on developer experience, build performance, and release integrity. The engineer will standardize how software is compiled, packaged, versioned, and promoted across unclassified and controlled unclassified environments, and will bake security and compliance checks directly into the build process.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins) that compile, test, package, and publish software across multiple programs.
Own build automation and release engineering end to end — reproducible builds, semantic versioning, dependency management, and promotion across environments.
Manage artifact repositories and container registries (Artifactory, Nexus, ECR/ACR), including retention, access control, and provenance.
Develop and maintain build tooling and scripts (Bash, Python, Make, Bazel, or Gradle) to standardize and accelerate builds across teams.
Optimize build performance through caching, parallelization, and incremental build strategies to reduce cycle time and cost.
Integrate automated security and quality gates into pipelines (SAST, SCA, dependency scanning, SBOM generation) and surface actionable results to developers.
Build and maintain container images and base image pipelines, keeping them patched, hardened, and compliant.
Automate infrastructure and build-environment provisioning using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform).
Partner with development, security, and compliance teams to deliver self-service tooling and generate audit and compliance evidence from the pipeline.
Maintain documentation, runbooks, and standards for build and release processes across the organization.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent hands-on experience.
8+ years of experience in build/release engineering, DevOps, or software infrastructure roles.
Hands-on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with tools such as GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins.
Strong scripting and automation skills in Python and Bash.
Experience with artifact and dependency management (Artifactory, Nexus, or equivalent) and container registries.
Proficiency with Git-based version control and branching/release workflows.
Working knowledge of containerization (Docker)
Experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS or Azure).
U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance

Nice to have

DevSecOps experience — integrating SAST/DAST/SCA scanning, software supply chain security, SBOM generation, and artifact signing (Cosign/Sigstore) into build pipelines.
Hands-on Kubernetes experience (EKS, AKS, or self-managed), including Helm-based packaging and container orchestration.
Experience with GitOps workflows and tooling (ArgoCD or Flux).
Hands on experience with the Conan C/C++ package manager, including custom recipes and remote artifact caching
Experience operating in AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, or IL4/IL5 environments.
Familiarity with DoD and federal compliance frameworks (NIST 800-53, NIST 800-171, CMMC, FedRAMP, DFARS).
Active Secret or Top Secret security clearance.

Benefits

We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and visions plans
401(k) Retirement Savings Plan to invest in your long-term retirement goals
Equity grants for new hires
Unlimited PTO
Extremely generous company holiday calendar, including a holiday hiatus in July & December.
Generous Parental Leave
Lifestyle Spending Account
FSA
DCFSA
HSA
Hospital Indemnity insurance
Critical Illness insurance
Accident insurance
Basic Life/AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, 100% covered by Firestorm. Plus, the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your family.
Mental Health Resources: We provide free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy and more. Additional work-life services, such as free legal and financial support, are available to you as well.