Senior Site Reliability Engineer (DevOps)

Focus

United States

Remote

Who this role is best for

Aimed at experienced SRE/DevOps professionals who can work in remote environments and have a strong background in government platform modernization.

Best fit for

Candidates with 5+ years in SRE or DevOps and a track record in government platform modernization efforts
— “Experience supporting legacy modernization or cloud migration efforts.”
Individuals skilled in Terraform and observability tools, particularly in secure environments
— “Design, build, and maintain cloud infrastructure using Terraform, including reusable modules and patterns that other teams can adopt.”
Professionals who can translate technical tradeoffs into strategic recommendations for government stakeholders
— “Serve as a technical advisor to client stakeholders, translating reliability and infrastructure tradeoffs into clear recommendations.”

Things to consider

Must be based in the continental U.S. and may need to travel 1-2 times per year
— “Some projects may require occasional travel, approximately 1-2 times per year.”
Work authorization must not require visa sponsorship, and may involve government background checks
— “Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future.”

How to stand out

Emphasize your ability to define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets for critical systems
— “Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets for critical services, and use them to guide reliability priorities and release decisions.”
Showcase your hands-on experience with observability tooling like DataDog and Prometheus
— “Implement observability through metrics, logging, tracing, dashboards, and actionable alerts.”
Demonstrate your ability to embed security and compliance into infrastructure and delivery processes
— “Embed security and compliance into infrastructure and delivery, including vulnerability management, patching, secrets management, and support for ATO and continuous monitoring processes.”

Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

Design, build, and maintain cloud infrastructure using Terraform
Build and improve CI/CD pipelines
Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
Implement observability through metrics, logging, tracing, dashboards, and actionable alerts

Typical background

5+ years of professional experience in SRE, DevOps, platform, or cloud infrastructure engineeringSignificant hands-on experience with Terraform in production

Skills & requirements

Required

TerraformCi/cd PipelinesObservability ToolsScripting Or Programming LanguagesSecurity And Compliance

Preferred

PythonGoTypeScript

Stack & domain

TerraformCi/cd PipelinesObservability ToolsPythonGoTypeScriptAWSFedramp ComplianceATO And Continuous Monitoring ProcessesLeadershipCommunicationProblem-solvingAnalytical SkillsCollaborationAdaptabilityAccountabilityDecision MakingCloud InfrastructureGovernment PlatformsDevops Practices

About the role

Original posting from Focus via Ashby

ABOUT FOCUS
Focus https://focusconsulting.io/ is a digital services firm dedicated to delivering on projects with impact in the civic tech space. We partner with states and federal agencies—including the Department of State, IRS, and the Department of Education—transform outdated systems into modern, efficient solutions that deliver better outcomes for citizens.
At Focus, we believe in doing impactful work while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We encourage our team to log off at the end of the day, take time off when needed, and bring their best selves to work. We are intentional about staying on the cutting edge of our tooling and practices—from modern cloud development environments to integrating AI into our daily workflows—so our engineers spend their time solving hard problems, not fighting dull tools.
We are a fully remote company, and all employees must be based in the continental U.S. Some projects may require occasional travel, approximately 1-2 times per year.
ROLE OVERVIEW
As a Senior Site Reliability Engineer, you will own the reliability, deployability, and observability of complex, multi-vendor government platforms running in secure environments. You will build and maintain infrastructure as code in Terraform, design CI/CD pipelines, establish monitoring practices, and recommend SLOs to define and support system health. You’ll work closely with product teams, client stakeholders, and partner organizations, bringing SRE and DevOps practices to environments that are often in the middle of modernization.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Design, build, and maintain cloud infrastructure using Terraform, including reusable modules and patterns that other teams can adopt.
Build and improve CI/CD pipelines that support frequent, low-risk releases, with automated testing, security scanning, and promotion across environments.
Define and track SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets for critical services, and use them to guide reliability priorities and release decisions.
Implement observability through metrics, logging, tracing, dashboards, and actionable alerts.
Lead incident response and blameless postmortems, and drive follow-up work to completion. Participate in an on-call rotation as needed by the engagement.
Troubleshoot complex, distributed systems across infrastructure, application, and network layers.
Embed security and compliance into infrastructure and delivery, including vulnerability management, patching, secrets management, and support for ATO and continuous monitoring processes.
Automate operational toil with scripts and tooling in languages such as Python, Go, or TypeScript.
Serve as a technical advisor to client stakeholders, translating reliability and infrastructure tradeoffs into clear recommendations.
Mentor teammates through code and infrastructure reviews, pairing, and documented runbooks and standards.
SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS
5+ years of professional experience in SRE, DevOps, platform, or cloud infrastructure engineering.
Significant hands-on experience with Terraform in production, including module design, state management, and running plan/apply workflows through CI.
Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins).
Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language, such as Python, Go, or TypeScript.
Experience with observability tools (e.g., DataDog, CloudWatch, Grafana, Prometheus) and with designing meaningful alerts.
Experience with containers and container orchestration (e.g., Docker, ECS, Kubernetes).
Familiarity with FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, or ATO processes.
Experience supporting legacy modernization or cloud migration efforts.
Familiarity with AWS GovCloud environments, FedRAMP compliance standards, and observability tooling such as DataDog.
REQUIREMENTS
Legal authorization to work in the United States
Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired
Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future
May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract

Source: Focus careers (Ashby)