DevOps Engineer

Job Overview:

We’re looking for a hands-on DevOps Engineer who builds and ships. This is not a role for someone who hands off design documents or lives only in architecture diagrams. You’ll be writing Terraform, supporting production infrastructure, troubleshooting real issues, optimizing underperforming systems, and automating work so teams can move faster.

What makes this role different is how we work. AI is part of your daily toolkit. We’re not looking for someone who is merely “interested in” AI tools—you already know how to use them to accelerate real work. You understand how tools like Claude Code can dramatically reduce the time it takes to build infrastructure, write scripts, or troubleshoot problems, and you’re motivated to apply that speed in a production environment.

This is a hands-on engineering role. Expect to spend the majority of your time building and improving infrastructure, sometime designing and refining solutions with more senior engineers, and minimal time in meetings. If your goal is to move away from hands‑on engineering or into a role focused primarily on diagramming and presentations, this likely isn’t the right fit.

Responsibilities: Your day if you join us:

What You'll Build

• Terraform modules for Azure Government and Commercial deployments—networking, compute, storage, identity, databases, monitoring
• AI-assisted Terraform module generation with automated testing, documentation, and compliance validation
• State management patterns for multi-environment deployments (dev/QA/staging/prod) with proper isolation
• Drift detection and remediation automation—catch what changed and fix it before it becomes an incident

• Support Azure SQL and SQL Server performance —query optimization, index strategies, execution plan analysis
• Zero/Minimal- downtime database migrations with automated rollback strategies.
• Stored procedure optimization and refactoring with proper error handling and logging
• Automated maintenance: index rebuilds, statistics updates, consistency checks, backup validation
• Query Store analysis and AI-assisted performance troubleshooting

• Hub-and-spoke architectures with proper segmentation for FedRAMP boundaries
• Private Link configurations, DNS forwarding, and service endpoint strategies
• ExpressRoute and VPN connectivity for hybrid scenarios
• Azure Firewall and NSG policies with AI-assisted rule generation and audit
• ZScaler integration and troubleshooting for secure internet egress

• PowerShell modules for Azure resource management, database operations, reporting, and remediation
• Bash scripts for Linux workloads and CI/CD pipeline integration
• Python utilities for API integrations, data processing, and custom tooling
• AI-assisted script generation with proper error handling, logging, and testing

Operational Excellence

• Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights configurations
• Database and infrastructure alerting that's actionable, not noise
• Runbooks and automation for common remediation tasks
• Cost analysis and optimization—Reserved Instances, right-sizing, orphaned resources

Qualifications: You are a great fit for this role if you:

• 5+ years hands-on Azure infrastructure experience (Azure Government strongly preferred)
• Bachelor s degree in IT, Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
• Strong SQL Server / Azure SQL skills: query optimization, index tuning, execution plans, stored procedures
• Strong Terraform experience: modules, workspaces, remote state, provider configuration, testing with Terratest or similar
• Strong PowerShell: Azure modules, SQL Server modules, REST API calls, error handling, module development
• Azure networking depth: VNets, peering, Private Link, DNS, NSGs, Azure Firewall, ExpressRoute
• Active use of AI coding tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor) in your daily workflow
• Git workflows: branching strategies, PR reviews, merge conflict resolution
• Experience with FedRAMP, CMMC, or similar compliance frameworks
• Comfortable debugging production issues under pressure—databases, networking, or infrastructure
• Due to customer requirements, U.S. Citizenship is required.  Ability to gain and maintain Trusted Role is required.

Preferred Qualifications:

You are exactly who we are looking for if you:

• Azure certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305, AZ-500, DP-300)
• Experience with database migrations, version control for schema changes (Flyway, Liquibase, or similar)
• Bicep experience in addition to Terraform
• GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps pipeline development
• Python scripting for automation and tooling
• Experience with Azure PIM, Conditional Access, and identity governance
• Container platforms: AKS, Container Apps, Docker
• Background in defense, aerospace, or highly regulated industries

Location: Herndon, VA, Cincinnati, OH- Hybrid(3x/week)

Remote: NC, GA, TX, NJ, PA, IL, DC, MD, OH, FL, SC, VA, CO, IN

You've already changed how you work because of AI tools. You don't just use autocomplete—you've figured out how to prompt for entire infrastructure patterns, optimize complex SQL queries, and iterate faster than you ever could manually. You have opinions about which AI tools work best for different tasks.

You prefer automation over manual effort. When you see a team doing something repetitive, your instinct is to automate it. When you see documentation that's out of date, you think about how to generate it from the source of truth.

You can context-switch. Monday might be debugging a DNS forwarding issue. Tuesday might be optimizing a slow stored procedure. Wednesday might be writing a Terraform module for a new service. Thursday might be helping a developer understand why their app can't reach a database. You're comfortable across the stack.

We build trust infrastructure for defense contractors. FedRAMP Moderate certified, CMMC compliant, serving aerospace and defense supply chains. The work matters—our platforms enable secure collaboration across thousands of organizations in the defense industrial base.

The environment: Azure Government and Commercial, complex networking with hybrid connectivity, SQL Server databases that need to perform under load, real compliance requirements (not checkbox security), and a team that's actively adopting AI tools for development. We're rolling out Claude Code to 100+ developers. We're building with AI, not just talking about it.

The challenges are real: Service Bus queues that need to handle thousands of messages without crashing, DNS forwarding that has to work across multiple tenants, database queries that auditors will scrutinize, stored procedures that need to run in milliseconds not seconds. If you want interesting problems, we have them.

We believe in employee development: we promote internally and provide training and educational assistance

We provide a fun, engaged workplace, with social and community-building events

We offer comprehensive benefits and flexible time off plans

Exostar is an Equal Employment Employer.  The company provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, disability status or genetic information.  Exostar is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all persons in all facets of employment including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, training, benefits, transfers and working conditions.