Developer Operations Engineer Kubernetes Jobs in Denver, CO

Northrop Grumman's Space Sector is seeking a DevOps Engineer - Level 2 or Level 3 to join our team in Aurora, CO to support on-premises mission systems by operating, maintaining, and incrementally enhancing existing DevOps and platform solutions. The engineer will work within established architectures and standards rather than designing new solutions, focusing on reliability, security, and continuous improvement of current environments. The position can be based in Fairfax, VA.

In this job, you will:

• Operate and maintain existing GitLab CI/CD infrastructure including patching and permissions. Advise on updates to jobs, runners, variables, and approvals to improve stability and throughput.

• Administer Nexus artifact repositories including patching, backups, access management, repository configuration, cleanup/retention policies, and routine health checks.

• Maintain Apache NiFi infrastructure including patching, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and implementing changes defined by senior engineers.

• Support installation and day-to-day operations of Kubernetes on-prem clusters, including patching, storage management, deployments, rollouts/rollbacks, configuration updates, and resource adjustments.

• Maintain and extend monitoring and alerting using Grafana and Prometheus for on-prem infrastructure and applications, including patching, access control, refining dashboards, alert rules, and service onboarding within existing observability patterns.

• Implement incremental improvements to existing DevOps tooling and workflows (e.g., adding tests, improving pipeline stages, automating manual steps) consistent with established designs and security baselines.

• Perform routine incident response and problem resolution for build, deployment, and runtime issues across CI/CD, Kubernetes, Nexus, NiFi, and supporting services.

• Apply existing security and compliance controls across the DevOps toolchain: secrets management, access controls, certificate and credential rotation, image scanning, and log retention in accordance with program requirements.

• Follow formal change management processes, including documenting changes, participating in reviews, and updating runbooks, SOPs, and technical documentation.

• Collaborate with senior engineers, system administrators, and developers to implement improvements and operational changes defined by leads and architects.

• Other duties as assigned

This position can be staffed at a level 2 or 3 based on the basic qualifications below.

Basic Qualifications:

• Level 2: Bachelor's in STEM degree with 2 years of professional experience; Master's in STEM degree with 0 years of professional experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.

• Level 3: Bachelor's in STEM degree with 5 years of professional experience; Master's in STEM degree with 3 years of professional experience; PhD with 0 years of experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.

• Requires an active Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance at time of application

• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain U.S. Government Full Scope Polygraph.

• Relevant DevOps, site reliability, or systems engineering experience.

• Demonstrated experience maintaining GitLab CI/CD in an on-prem environment

• Practical experience administering Nexus repositories

• Experience supporting Apache NiFi infrastructure

• Working knowledge of on-prem Kubernetes operations

• Experience using Grafana and Prometheus in an on-prem context

• Proficiency with Linux systems administration fundamentals and at least one scripting language (e.g., Bash, Python) for automation and operational tasks.

• Familiarity with operating in secure, classified, or highly regulated on-prem environments and adherence to associated processes (security, configuration control, and auditing).

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; ability to methodically diagnose issues across multiple interconnected services.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience using Helm and Rancher

• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) for maintaining existing on-prem infrastructure definitions and playbooks.

• Experience with log aggregation and analysis platforms in on-prem environments (e.g., ELK/EFK or similar).

• Experience working within formal change control and release management processes.

• Exposure to microservices running on Kubernetes and related operational patterns (service discovery, scaling, health checks).

• Behavioral Competencies

• Operational ownership: Proactively monitors, maintains, and improves existing on-prem systems and DevOps toolchains.

• Continuous improvement mindset: Identifies and implements incremental enhancements within established architectures and constraints.

• Team collaboration: Works closely with senior engineers, system administrators, security, and development teams to execute defined technical directions.

• Discipline and rigor: Adheres to security, configuration management, and documentation expectations in a classified on-prem environment.