DevOps Specialist

1099 Consultant | Remote, Some San Diego | Immediate Start

We are looking for a platform engineer who has owned the delivery layer in production and can leave it running for a client team that did not build it. In this role, you own that layer across engagements: pipelines in GitHub Actions, containers, Terraform on Azure and AWS, secrets and access, observability, and the audit evidence and runbooks their team needs to take it over.

Why This Role
We build business systems for executives at mid-market companies, across industries and across the executive team, through three practices: fractional CFO leadership, AI enablement, and revenue engineering. We rebuild delivery pipelines engagement by engagement today. This role consolidates the work into one hardened pattern, applied across client environments and owned by one person. The first engagement is that rebuild, then you extend the pattern into new client work and keep it running.

What You'd Own

CI/CD in GitHub Actions: build, test, scan, and gated deploy, with branch protection and reviewer rules enforced in configuration rather than convention
Container work in Docker: minimal base images, pinned versions, vulnerability scanning, and promotion of one signed artifact through environments
Infrastructure as code in Terraform: module authoring, remote state, plan review as a required check, and scheduled drift detection with a written remediation path
Cloud footprint on Azure and AWS: identity and access, network boundaries, environment parity, cost tagging, clean separation between client tenants
Secrets and access: no static keys in repositories, federated identity from CI to cloud, short-lived credentials, rotation on a schedule
Observability and audit evidence: logs, metrics, and alerting a delivery lead reads during an engagement, plus pipeline artifacts and approval records a client auditor accepts
Client handoff: stand up a new client environment inside the first two weeks, write runbooks the client team runs after we step back, explain tradeoffs in plain terms to a finance audience

What We Expect
Five years of production DevOps or platform engineering, two of them on cloud infrastructure you owned end to end. Consulting or agency background helps.

GitHub (3+ years): Actions, reusable workflows, OIDC federation to cloud, branch protection, environment approvals, release automation
Docker (3+ years): multi-stage builds, image hardening, registry promotion, scanning, sane layer caching
Terraform (2+ years): module design, remote state and locking, plan review discipline, drift handling
AWS (working depth): IAM, VPC design, ECS or EKS, S3, RDS, CloudWatch, cost visibility
Azure (working depth): Entra ID, subscriptions and resource groups, Container Apps or AKS, Key Vault, Monitor
Scripting (working depth): Python, Go, or Bash for glue code, tests, and internal tooling

Useful, Not Required

Kubernetes with Helm, GitOps delivery through Argo CD or Flux
Policy as code with OPA or Sentinel, plus supply chain controls such as SBOM generation and image signing
Evidence collection for SOC 2 or ISO audits, comfort talking to an assessor
Deployment patterns for LLM applications: prompt versioning, evaluation gates before release, model routing, token cost controls

Who This Suits
Our clients are executives and the operators who report to them, not platform teams. Infrastructure nobody else operates is a liability here, so documentation and handoff quality carry the same weight as the build. You write things down, prefer predictable tools over new ones, and are comfortable telling a partner a deploy is not ready.

Engagement Terms:

Classification: 1099 independent contractor, statement of work per engagement, you carry your own equipment and insurance

Compensation: hourly or fixed fee, set at the first call based on scope and experience
Location and schedule: remote, with occasional onsite client work in San Diego, hours flex to client delivery windows

Intellectual property: we own deliverables produced under the statement of work, background IP you bring stays yours

Term and renewal: each statement of work is scoped in weeks, extensions run through a written amendment

Invoicing: invoiced monthly against the statement of work

Confidentiality: mutual NDA signed before client systems access, client data stays inside client-controlled environments

How to Apply:
Send the following to [email protected] with the subject line "DevOps Specialist":

A short note on one pipeline you built, and what broke first once real traffic hit it
A resume or profile link, no cover letter
One repository, Terraform module, or workflow file you are willing to walk through live

Selection Process:

Screening call, 30 minutes: scope of the first engagement, your availability, and rate
Technical conversation, 60 minutes: a walkthrough of your own code with a partner, no take-home project
References and paperwork: two references, then a statement of work for the first scope

We aim to give a decision within a week of the technical conversation.