DevOps Lead

Location: St. Louis, MO (Hybrid)
Department: Technology Services
Reports To: Enterprise Applications Director

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced DevOps Lead to build, scale, and lead our DevOps function within the Enterprise Applications team. This individual will be responsible for establishing best-in-class practices for system reliability, security, and observability while driving automation, monitoring, and tooling strategies that align with broader business objectives.

This role partners closely with product, engineering, and security teams to enable seamless deployments, improve system resilience, and foster a culture of operational excellence and continuous improvement.

What You’ll Do

Leadership & Strategy

• Define and execute the DevOps vision, strategy, and roadmap aligned with organizational goals
• Partner cross-functionally with engineering, product, and security teams to drive alignment and operational excellence
• Promote a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement

Infrastructure & Automation

• Design, deploy, and scale cloud infrastructure using Microsoft Azure (IaaS/PaaS)
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to support secure, reliable, and efficient software delivery
• Champion Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practices using tools such as Terraform and Ansible

Reliability & Observability

• Establish Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) best practices to improve system uptime and performance
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting solutions to proactively identify and resolve issues
• Lead incident response efforts and facilitate blameless postmortems focused on root cause analysis

Security & Compliance

• Integrate DevSecOps practices into the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
• Partner with security teams to support compliance initiatives (SOC 2, ISO, GDPR)
• Ensure secure infrastructure and deployment processes across environments

Cost & Performance Optimization

• Monitor and optimize cloud resource utilization for cost efficiency
• Continuously improve system performance, scalability, and resource allocation

What You Bring

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• Proven experience leading or building DevOps functions from the ground up
• Strong understanding of DevOps architecture, best practices, and design patterns
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to collaborate across teams and stakeholders

Technical Expertise

• Cloud Platforms: Azure (IaaS, PaaS), Azure DevOps (Repos, Pipelines)
• Containerization & Orchestration: Kubernetes (AKS), Docker
• CI/CD & Automation: Git, GitHub, GitHub Actions, YAML pipelines
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Ansible (or similar tools like Chef/Puppet)
• Monitoring & Observability: DataDog (or equivalent)
• Testing & Quality: JUnit, Playwright, CodeCov
• Experience leveraging AI-driven DevOps tools to improve efficiency and delivery quality

Nice to Have

• Experience in regulated environments requiring compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR)
• Exposure to advanced observability or performance optimization tools

Additional Information

• This role operates within a matrixed organization and requires strong cross-functional collaboration
• May support audits, reporting, and other operational initiatives as needed
• Commitment to meeting deadlines, maintaining high-quality work, and supporting business priorities

Why Join Us

• Opportunity to build and lead a DevOps function from the ground up
• High-visibility role with impact across engineering and business teams
• Collaborative, fast-paced environment focused on innovation and continuous improvement