DevOps Engineer -- AWS / Federal Compliance (Part-Time, Maryland)

The role We need a part-time DevOps engineer to own our AWS environment. You will be the person who keeps the platform running, keeps it secure, and builds the compliant foundation we need to handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The platform is built entirely on microservices and serverless AWS components: containerized services behind an API gateway, an event-driven AI pipeline, and a long list of managed services. The work is architecture, automation, security, and compliance. You will report to the CTO and work with a distributed engineering team. What you will do

• Own the AWS environment end to end: multi-Availability Zone VPC with private subnets, Application Load Balancer, API Gateway, ECS on Fargate, Lambda, Step Functions, and EventBridge.
• Manage everything as infrastructure as code (Terraform, AWS CDK, or CloudFormation) so every environment is reproducible.
• Build and maintain continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines for containerized microservices: image builds, vulnerability scanning, and deployments to ECS Fargate and Lambda.
• Operate the data tier: DynamoDB, Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2, Neptune, OpenSearch (vector search), and S3, including provisioning, backups, encryption, and access controls.
• Support the AI pipeline: Amazon Bedrock model access, Bedrock Knowledge Bases backed by OpenSearch, Textract, and the IAM roles that connect them.
• Enforce security fundamentals: least-privilege IAM, Cognito multi-tenant authentication, Secrets Manager, KMS encryption at rest and TLS in transit, and monitoring with GuardDuty, Security Hub, and AWS Config.
• Design, build, and document the compliant environment for CUI and ITAR/EAR data: NIST SP 800-171 and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Level 2 controls, AWS GovCloud (US) planning, and the data-segregation controls that keep export-controlled data away from non-U.S. persons.
• Get us ready for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP): implement the technical controls, collect evidence, and contribute to the System Security Plan (SSP) and Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M).
• Run observability and incident response: CloudWatch logs, metrics, and alarms; runbooks; AppConfig feature flags and runtime configuration.
• Manage cost: tagging, budgets, alerts, and right-sizing. Bedrock, Neptune, and OpenSearch are our largest cost drivers.

Requirements

• 3+ years in DevOps, site reliability, or cloud infrastructure roles with AWS as your primary platform.
• Hands-on production experience with most of the services above — in particular ECS Fargate, Lambda, Step Functions, API Gateway, EventBridge, DynamoDB, Aurora, S3, OpenSearch, Cognito, IAM, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, and VPC/ALB networking.
• You have operated systems built entirely on microservices: containerized services behind an API gateway, asynchronous event-driven communication between services, service-to-service authentication, and centralized logging and tracing. Not a monolith with a couple of services bolted on.
• Infrastructure as code and CI/CD as daily practice (Terraform, CDK, or CloudFormation; GitHub Actions, CodePipeline, or similar).
• You have built or operated environments that handle CUI under NIST SP 800-171 / CMMC and ITAR or EAR technical data — including AWS GovCloud (US) and the access controls that restrict export-controlled data to U.S. persons.
• Clear written documentation: runbooks, architecture notes, control narratives, and evidence a third-party assessor can follow.

Nice to have

• U.S. Veteran
• FedRAMP Moderate experience — SSP authoring, third-party assessment organization (3PAO) preparation, and continuous monitoring.
• AWS certifications: Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, or Security Specialty.
• Amazon Bedrock, Bedrock Knowledge Bases, Neptune, or OpenSearch vector workloads.
• Multi-tenant SaaS with tenant isolation at the identity and data layers.
• Python or TypeScript for automation.
• Familiarity with federal contracting (capture, proposals, SAM.gov, USAspending).

Our stack

• Compute and orchestration: AWS Step Functions, Amazon Bedrock, AWS Lambda, Amazon ECS on Fargate
• Data and storage: Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Neptune, Amazon OpenSearch, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2, Amazon S3
• Document processing: Amazon Textract
• Networking, security, and operations: Amazon API Gateway, Amazon Cognito, AWS IAM, AWS Secrets Manager, Application Load Balancer, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS AppConfig
• Eligibility — please read before applying
• Maryland residency: You must live in Maryland and perform the work from Maryland as of your start date.

We cannot consider candidates located outside Maryland for this role. U.S. person status: This role involves access to data controlled under ITAR and EAR. You must a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or lawful permanent resident. We verify this status before your start date. No security clearance is required.

Company Description

OST is an amazing place to work for self-driven and dynamic people who like to solve big problems and shape solutions for multi-million and multi-billion-dollar government contracts. We have helped government contractors win more than $27 Billion through our consulting practice and have trained thousands on how to win government contracts through our Bid & Proposal Academy. We have a big vision and a small, highly talented team within OST. Everyone at OST profoundly impacts our clients’ companies, their employees, and the government contracts we help them win. OST has invested almost two decades in intellectual property development and is now on a rapid growth trajectory. In addition to growing our consulting practice, we have launched the following innovative initiatives: - Grow the Registered Apprenticeship program in Government Business Development - Develop co-marketing/partnerships with major educational institutions - Leverage our GovCon Incubator as a public good component of our company - Productize Bid & Proposal Academy training to harness the virtual learning trends of the post-pandemic world while reducing delivery costs - Broaden the training reach and establish the Bid & Proposal Academy as the new leading training brand name in government contracting OST’s mission is to build the single biggest business development solutions company in the government contracting market.