Mid-Level DevSecOps Engineer

Engineering Contract On-site, Washington, DC

XCell was born out of a passion for using the power of design to transform organizations in ways that build up our communities. We work in small, fast-paced agile teams that use Design Thinking to help Government, Non‑Profit and Educational organizations solve complex challenges. We value our team and culture — finding the right fit takes time, and we believe in hiring slow.

• U.S. citizenship is required.
• Must be U.S.
  
  -based and able to work on-site in Washington, DC.
• Must be able to pass a federal background investigation and suitability determination for access to the customer’s systems and facilities.

We are looking for a Mid‑Level Dev Sec Ops  Engineer to join a federal engineering team in Washington, DC and help extend its infrastructure automation, CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, and secure delivery. This is not a build‑from‑scratch role. You will inherit existing patterns, adhere to the team’s standards, and improve capabilities inside an active production environment. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, U.S.

-based, and able to work on‑site in DC.

• Infrastructure as code: maintain, extend, and refactor Terraform and Open Tofu, including modular configurations, remote state, and workspace management.
• Configuration as code: develop and maintain Ansible playbooks and roles, using dynamic inventories and Ansible Vault for secrets.
• CI/CD: build and improve Git Hub Actions workflows with security gates, including static analysis, dependency and secrets scanning, and policy‑as‑code validation.
• Containers: author and harden Dockerfiles, manage Kubernetes manifests and Helm charts, support namespace and RBAC configuration, and help with cluster health and image scanning.
• Security integration: embed SAST and DAST scanning in pipelines, enforce CIS benchmarks and customer security baselines, and support NIST and FISMA compliance.
• Team delivery: work within the team’s version control, change management, and peer‑review workflows; participate in stand‑ups, sprint planning, and technical reviews; and document your work.

• Infrastructure as code: hands‑on Terraform and Open Tofu, including module development, remote state, and workspace management.
• Configuration as code: proficiency with Ansible, including playbook and role development, dynamic inventories, and Ansible Vault.
• CI/CD: experience designing and maintaining Git Hub Actions workflows, including reusable workflows, matrix builds, and security‑gate integration.
• Containers: working knowledge of Docker image authoring and hardening, Kubernetes and Helm, and container scanning tools such as Trivy or Grype.
• Security integration: familiarity with SAST tools (Semgrep, Checkov, tfsec), secrets scanning (Gitleaks, Detect‑Secrets), and policy‑as‑code (OPA/Rego).
• Version control: strong Git workflow skills, including branching strategies, pull‑request reviews, and protected branches.

• Experience in a federal or highly regulated environment.
• Familiarity with NIST SP 800-53, FISMA, and FedRAMP compliance.
• Cloud platform experience (AWS).
• Experience with secrets management tools such as Hashi Corp Vault.
• Scripting in Python and Bash.

• Three or more years of hands‑on Dev Sec Ops , platform, or infrastructure engineering.
• Demonstrated experience across the full toolchain:
  IaC, CI/CD, containers, and security integration, not just one slice.
• Experience working inside an established team’s change‑control and peer‑review process.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills for an agile, cross‑functional team.

• You, the person. Bring your whole, authentic self, not a version you think we want to see.
• Your…