LightFeather is hiring a cleared Azure infrastructure and DevOps professional to support mission-critical federal IT modernization in Washington, D.C. In this role, you'll take ownership of secure cloud architecture, infrastructure automation, and compliance operations - working directly alongside government stakeholders to keep systems performant, resilient, and audit-ready.
- Location: Hybrid, On-site 4 days/week in Washington, D.C. 20036 and 1 day Telework
- Job Type: Full-time
- Clearance Requirement: U.S. citizenship is required for this position due to federal contract requirements and the need to obtain and maintain a Secret-level security clearance
Key Responsibilities- Design, deploy, and maintain Azure cloud infrastructure including VMs, VNets, Storage, Azure AD, and PaaS services.
- Manage and optimize Azure networking components (VNets, NSGs, Load Balancers, VPN/ExpressRoute connectivity).
- Develop and maintain Terraform templates as the primary IaC tool (critical requirement emphasized by hiring managers).
- Support automation via PowerShell, Bash, YAML/JSON, and GitLab pipelines.
- Deploy, configure, and manage AVD environments including host pools, session hosts, FSLogix profile containers, and Azure AD/M365 integrations.
- Provide troubleshooting and performance optimization for AVD users (explicit customer requirement).
- Build, maintain, and troubleshoot CI/CD pipelines in GitLab.
- Automate cloud operations, system configuration, and monitoring tasks.
- Implement secure cloud practices aligned with federal requirements (RBAC, Key Vault, IAM, encryption standards).
- Ensure compliance with NIST, RMF, FedRAMP, and agency-specific controls.
- Use Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and related tools to analyze system health, diagnose issues, and enforce SLAs.
- Work with engineering, security, and program staff to support ongoing cloud modernization efforts.
- Support onsite collaboration with customer stakeholders (note: role cannot be performed remotely long-term).
Required Qualifications- Active Secret clearance or higher
- Ability to commute to Washington, D.C. and work onsite four days per week
- 5+ years of total experience in Cloud Engineering, DevOps, or Systems Engineering
- 3+ years hands-on with Azure cloud services and infrastructure architecture
- 3+ years building and managing CI/CD pipelines in production environments
- 3+ years writing and maintaining Terraform IaC (high-priority skill)
- 3+ years working with GitLab for source control and pipeline management
- 4+ years of PowerShell scripting for systems automation
- Demonstrated production experience with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)
- Working knowledge of federal compliance frameworks: FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, RMF
Preferred Qualifications- Prior work supporting DoD or civilian federal agency cloud programs
- Familiarity with containerization: Docker, Kubernetes, or AKS
- Experience with Azure serverless services (Functions, Logic Apps, Event Grid)
- FinOps or Azure Cost Management experience for cloud spend governance
