Freelance Python Automation Engineer Jobs in Maryland

About Us

ESimplicity is a modern digital services company that partners with government agencies to improve the lives and protect the well-being of all Americans, from veterans and service members to children, families, and seniors. Our engineers, designers, and strategists cut through complexity to create intuitive products and services that equip federal agencies with solutions to courageously transform today for a better tomorrow.

Purpose and Scope:

eSimplicity is seeking a skilled Platform Automation Engineer to support a federal financial regulatory agency's enterprise data engineering program. In this role, you will build and maintain the CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code, and deployment automation that power a large-scale, AWS-based Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) supporting mission-critical financial datasets used for regulatory examinations, enforcement, analytics, and policymaking. You will enable frequent, secure, single-command releases across a growing portfolio of automated production data pipelines while advancing Zero Trust security principles and modern DevSecOps practices.

Successful candidates will be eligible to hold a U.S. Federal Public Trust security clearance (Moderate Risk). This position is contingent upon contract award.

Responsibilities

• Implement and administer CI/CD pipelines for all ETL and data platform deliverables using CloudFormation templates, GitHub-based version control, and AWS Service Catalog, enabling successful builds and deployments to staging and production with a single command.
• Manage cloud-based infrastructure and services using approved Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies, Immutable Architecture principles, and reproducible deployment processes across development, staging, and production environments.
• Embed quality and security gates into CI/CD decision points, including static code analysis, dependency analysis, and government-provided container analysis tools; support remediation of medium- and high-level static and dynamic vulnerabilities in alignment with OWASP ASVS 4.0, Level 2.
• Automate orchestration and scheduling of data retrieval and ingestion jobs using Amazon Managed Workflows for Apache Airflow (MWAA), AWS Glue, Lambda, EventBridge, Step Functions, SNS, and SQS.
• Support release management, including Change Requests to the Change Control Board, release documentation, deployment references, rollback procedures, and project closeout within contract timelines.
• Ensure smooth operation of systems and infrastructure through monitoring, alerting, logging, preventative maintenance, and real-time remediation; keep production configurations consistent and controllable in support of ATO, FISMA, and NIST 800-53 compliance.
• Optimize system performance and cloud resource utilization to reduce cloud costs and deliver efficiency gains across the technical stack.
• Support disaster recovery exercises and actual events, ensuring production data loads continue as expected; provide pre-production deployment and data load support in lower environments.
• Provide on-call and after-hours support for production outages and emergencies as part of a team rotation, with full production support processes, documentation, and monitoring/alerting solutions.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools to accelerate automation, improve code quality, and reduce operational burden while adhering to security and performance standards.
• Work as part of an integrated agile team, participating in sprint planning, program increment planning, and backlog refinement; support team performance dashboards (velocity, burn-down, code coverage, backlog traceability).

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline. OR;
• In lieu of a degree, four additional years of related experience is required.
• Minimum of 8 years of professional experience in DevOps, platform engineering, or a related role.
• Hands-on experience administering and securing AWS cloud environments, including services such as Glue, Lambda, S3, EC2, EMR, MWAA/Airflow, SNS, SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions, and CloudWatch.
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines and delivering safe releases at a rapid rate using GitHub (or similar) in federal or otherwise regulated environments.
• Proven experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (CloudFormation preferred) and serverless computing patterns.
• Proficiency with Python and Linux/Bash scripting.
• Experience implementing security controls aligned with Zero Trust principles and secure software supply chain practices (e.g., OMB M-22-09, M-22-18).
• Excellent investigative and root-cause analysis skills for complex cloud problems; strong documentation and communication skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Moderate Risk Public Trust clearance; residing in the United States.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience supporting the full federal ATO and/or SDLC process and FedRAMP-authorized AWS offerings.
• Experience supporting big data platforms (Spark, EMR, Iceberg) and containerized workloads.
• Experience with Atlassian Jira/Confluence or GitHub Projects.
• Experience using AI and generative AI development tools for code generation, debugging, and performance tuning.
• Familiarity with federal compliance requirements including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.
• Prior experience with federal financial regulatory agencies.

Working Environment:

eSimplicity supports a hybrid work environment operating within the Eastern time zone so we can work with and respond to our government clients. Expected hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern unless otherwise directed by your manager.

Occasional travel for training and project meetings. It is estimated to be less than 5% per year.

Benefits:

eSimplicity offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k) retirement benefits, paid time off, paid holidays, life and disability insurance, and additional wellness and employee support programs. Eligibility may vary based on employment status and applicable plan terms.

Reasonable Accommodation:

eSimplicity is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process. Applicants who need assistance or accommodation should contact Human Resources.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

eSimplicity is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and protected veteran status. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.