Senior DevOps & AI Engineer

About NSTXL:

The National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL) harvests innovative technology from the commercial and non-defense marketplace, transforming government innovation while decreasing costs, compressing timelines, and improving outcomes. We offer a unique and simplified approach to rapidly developing, demonstrating, and assessing prototypes that address various operational and installation needs, from individual Warfighter technology to large-scale installation projects. NSTXL supports technology delivery to the Department of Defense by serving as a one-stop shop to match government requirements with innovative private-sector and academic solutions.

About Innovas:

At Innovas, we are transforming the way government innovates by delivering the mechanisms that turn ideas into action. We bring together the right people, processes, and technologies to accelerate progress where it matters most.

With a focus on impact over bureaucracy, collaboration over silos, and solutions over status quo, we we're built to act. Our team is made up of passionate problem-solvers, innovators, and experts who thrive on tackling meaningful challenges and delivering results. At Innovas, every role contributes to something bigger. Whether you’re supporting technology acquisition, improving processes, or enabling collaboration across organizations, your work helps move critical missions forward.

Join Innovas and help shape the future of government innovation.

Why work at Innovas:

Work on problems that matter.
At Innovas, your work directly supports innovation that shapes our nation’s future and delivers solutions with real-world impact.

Be part of something built differently.
Our teams are empowered to focus on solving problems, creating value, and exceeding expectations.

Bring ideas to life.
Work alongside passionate problem-solvers who thrive on tackling complex challenges and turning possibilities into progress.

Grow alongside a team of experts.
Our people bring diverse experiences from government, military, industry, technology, and entrepreneurship.

Job Description:

Reporting to the Senior Director of Engineering & Architecture, this senior individual contributor turns engineering priorities into working tools and automated workflows that help the team deliver customer-facing products. The role focuses approximately 40% on development infrastructure and DevOps, 40% on AI agents and orchestration, 10% on integrations and reporting, and 10% on stakeholder engagement and Scrum facilitation. The initial priorities are to establish the new DevOps environment and implement multi-agent workflows that execute approved backlog items and submit code through pull requests for human review. The role requires deep experience in automation, the software development lifecycle, CI/CD, and AI agent orchestration. Responsibilities include selecting and customizing established tools where practical, deploying cloud and local inference capabilities, and partnering with engineers and business stakeholders to improve delivery. Substantial application development experience is preferred; the core requirement is demonstrated ability to build and operate effective engineering automation.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Development Infrastructure and DevOps

• Design and implement the development and DevOps platform from scratch, initially using Azure DevOps Server, within the architecture and priorities established with the Senior Director.
• Own source control, repository standards, build runners, artifact and package repositories, development tooling, and the integrations connecting the engineering toolchain.
• Build CI/CD pipelines covering automated testing, quality and security checks, versioned artifacts, deployment approvals, release automation, and rollback.
• Provision repeatable development, test, staging, and production environments using infrastructure as code and configuration automation across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments.
• Support Windows, Linux, and containerized workloads; automate engineer onboarding and environment setup, and coordinate platform access, workload identities, and secrets with IT Services.
• Document platform architecture, operating procedures, and recovery steps; improve reliability and remove recurring manual work and delivery bottlenecks.

AI Agents and Workflow Orchestration

• Evaluate, select, integrate, and customize established AI agent tools and orchestration frameworks. Develop extensions and connectors where needed to support Innovas workflows.
• Implement workflows that read from a curated, prioritized backlog, gather requirements and repository context, decompose work, assign tasks to agents, coordinate dependencies, and track execution.
• Configure and develop agents for software development, testing, documentation, infrastructure automation, integrations, and approved business process automation.
• Connect agents to development tools, approved data sources, and execution environments; manage task state, isolated workspaces, retries, failure handling, and traceability to backlog items.
• Ensure agent-produced code is submitted through pull requests for human review, with appropriate test results and supporting context. Maintain traceability from the backlog item to the proposed change.
• Develop and implement access controls, execution boundaries, human approval gates, and accountability for agent actions in concert with the Senior Director and CTO.
• Evaluate agent quality and task completion against acceptance criteria; refine workflows using engineer feedback, failed runs, rework, and the cost of accepted results.

AI Inference Infrastructure

• Deploy and operate cloud and local model inference services, model gateways, and the software supporting agent execution across hybrid environments.
• Benchmark and tune inference latency, throughput, concurrency, memory consumption, and operating cost against the needs of developers and agents.
• Manage model configuration, versioning, routing, provider integrations, and controlled upgrades; validate model suitability for the tasks and contexts it will support.
• Partner with IT Services on local inference hardware, hosting, capacity, and infrastructure maintenance, retaining engineering ownership of inference software and agent integrations.

Products and Custom Integrations

• Support the delivery of customer-facing products through engineering automation, agent workflows, deployment tooling, and custom integrations.
• Build API connectors and integration workflows between products and internal business systems, including finance systems where product requirements call for them.
• Develop custom integrations for internal systems where applicable, in partnership with business owners and IT Services. Document data flows, failure handling, and support responsibilities.

Production Support and Operational Ownership

• Own the engineering software and automation supporting development, releases, custom applications, custom integrations, and inference services. IT Services owns infrastructure patching, routine monitoring, and SaaS application administration.
• Provide application and agent telemetry, diagnostic information, alerts, and runbooks that support IT monitoring and escalation. Investigate and resolve failures requiring changes to engineering-owned software or configuration.
• Support production releases, rollback, and application recovery; participate in incident reviews and implement lasting fixes in coordination with engineers and IT Services.
• Provide initial on-call support for engineering-owned services. Prepare documentation, escalation procedures, and knowledge transfer for site reliability engineering (SRE) staff as coverage is established.

Stakeholder Partnership and Scrum Facilitation

• Work directly with business stakeholders to understand product needs, clarify requirements, identify opportunities for automation, and demonstrate delivered capabilities.
• Partner with the Senior Director and business stakeholders to curate and prioritize the backlog; document work items, dependencies, and acceptance criteria suitable for both engineers and AI agents.
• Coordinate requirements approval by the Senior Director or CTO in partnership with the business and organize user acceptance testing and feedback on delivered work.
• Serve as Scrum Master, facilitating planning, daily standups, reviews, and retrospectives. Track impediments and dependencies, coordinate their resolution, and communicate progress and delivery risks.
• Help the team improve its delivery practices through practical process changes, useful automation, and clear documentation; support adoption of the new engineering tools and workflows.

Reporting and Performance Measurement

• Build reports, KPIs, and dashboards showing operational health, engineering delivery, team performance, and AI agent performance.
• Establish baselines and agreed targets with the Senior Director. Track pipeline reliability, deployment frequency, lead time, failed changes, recovery, and environment readiness.
• Measure agent task completion, human acceptance, rework, failures, execution time, and cost per accepted result; connect these measures to product outcomes and software quality.
• Provide visibility into inference performance, utilization, capacity, and spending. Explain trends and recommend concrete improvements to engineering leadership and stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience automating infrastructure, technology operations, development workflows, or business processes, with substantial practical experience in DevOps and engineering automation.
• Demonstrated ability to build development infrastructure and delivery platforms, including source control, build systems, artifact repositories, automated testing, release management, and CI/CD.
• Strong practical knowledge of the software development lifecycle and the controls needed to move changes from requirements through human review, testing, deployment, and support.
• Hands-on experience implementing AI agent orchestration and multi-agent workflows, including tool integration, task coordination, evaluation, human review, and reliable execution.
• Experience deploying and operating AI inference services and integrating cloud or locally hosted models into agent workflows.
• Experience with infrastructure as code, configuration automation, containers, Windows and Linux, and cloud and on-premises environments.
• Practical ability to write, debug, and maintain scripts, API connectors, and workflow logic, and to work with software engineers to evaluate and troubleshoot agent-produced changes. No specific programming language is required.
• Experience supporting production services, diagnosing failures, and implementing recovery and operational improvements.
• Experience working with business stakeholders, maintaining actionable backlogs, facilitating Scrum, and creating useful operational or delivery reporting.
• Demonstrable examples of automation, DevOps platforms, or agent workflows the candidate has built or materially improved, with clear explanations of their contribution and results.
• US Citizenship is required.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Substantial software engineering experience building and operating production applications or services.
• Experience with Azure DevOps Server, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Graph API, and enterprise system integration.
• Experience establishing a new engineering platform and operating local GPU inference infrastructure.
• Experience with government contracting organizations and CMMC or NIST-based security programs.
• An active security clearance.

Travel: Up to six weeks per year Travel percentage reflects an estimate and is subject to change dependent on business needs.

Availability: This position may be required to participate in a scheduled on-call rotation as it is established to support business needs. Assigned coverage may include evenings, weekends, and holidays. On-call schedules, response expectations, and escalation procedures will be communicated in advance. During assigned coverage, the employee is expected to respond to incidents, troubleshoot and restore affected services, and engage appropriate internal or vendor resources in accordance with established procedures.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Innovas is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information.

What We Offer:

We strive to be one of the best places to work in America. We offer competitive salaries and benefits that include:

• Health Insurance: Medical and dental – company pays 92% of premiums for individual coverage and for family coverage
• Vision Insurance: Fully covered
• Retirement Plans: 401(k) with employer match up to 4%
• Paid Time Off: Paid sick and safe leave, paid floating holidays, and generous vacation
• Other:
• • Basic Life & AD&D policy company paid
  • Voluntary Life
  • Flexible & remote work structure
  • Wellness reimbursement plan & mental health support
  • Community sponsorships
  • Donation matching
  • Professional development allowance

If you need any accommodation for the interview process, please let us know when we contact you.

We take a geo-neutral approach to compensation within the US, meaning that we pay based on job function and level, not location. We are currently only open to remote employees residing in the following states: AL, FL, IN, MD,MI, MO, NM, NC, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, WY.

All offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of a standard background check.