DevSecOps Engineer - National Student Clearinghouse

Are you looking for more than just a job and want to make difference? If so, then join the National Student Clearinghouse talent community and discover your impact today!

We are a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization and the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. Serving the education, workforce and learner communities has been at the heart of our mission for over 30 years. Our work — performed in a trusted, secure, and private environment — provides numerous time- and cost-saving benefits to students, schools, administrators, and requestors. Education leaders rely on the Clearinghouse’s unique national student data resources to better understand student pathways and outcomes in order to help students succeed, and our research better informs practitioners and policymakers about student educational pathways and enables informed decision making.

About the Role:

Do you enjoy being a key contributor in a digital modernization effort to reengineer and migrate applications from on premise CI/CD processes to a secure, hybrid cloud environment? Are you looking for an opportunity to build secure, automated continuous integration and continuous deployment solutions for cloud-based applications? Want to tap your technical skills and experience to implement zero-downtime cloud computing solutions in an Agile environment? Would you like to do this using the latest cloud computing technologies? If so, this is the job for you! The Engineer, DevSecOps position works as part of a team responsible for operating and maintaining cloud and local software deployments with a focus on security and reliability.

Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

How You Contribute:

• Demonstrate NSC’s competencies, which align with our corporate values. Manager will provide more detail to candidates as needed.
  • Core Competencies include: Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.

Customer Focus:

• Integrate security tools and processes into NSC’s Jenkins and GitLab CI/CD pipelines, inclusive of automating security testing and vulnerability scanning.
• Design and implement efficient CI/CD pipelines within Jenkins and GitLab.
• Optimize user experience for developers and engineers within both Jenkins and GitLab.
• Promote adoption of GitLab best practices as NSC migrates our applications from Jenkins to GitLab.
• Define, implement, and maintain secure coding practices required by NSC’s application development teams.
• Perform automated deployments for Clearinghouse’s various environments while in parallel automating the build, deployment, and release processes in accordance with the Clearinghouse’s goals of implementing continuous integration, continuous security, and continuous deployment processes.
• Develop scripts and automation tools that will be used to build, integrate, and deploy software releases to various platforms.

Optimizes Work Processes:

• Install, setup, configure, and maintain the Clearinghouse’s build and release management tools.
• Maximize efficiency within the SDLC through build and deployment automation while aiming for no downtime or outages during deployments to production.
• Work to minimize the number of releases that need to be rolled back due to errors in the deployment process and/or in the content of the deployment (such as incorrect libraries, jar/war files, etc.)
• Support DevSecOps processes NSC’s GitLab Infrastructure:
  • Implement, manage, and maintain changes to our GitLab SAAS instance.
  • Optimize performance and scalability of our GitLab infrastructure.
  • Support vulnerability remediation efforts and implement security best practices within GitLab.
  • Automate and improve Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for better security and compliance.
  • Streamline deployment and maintenance processes for the team.
• Support and maintain NSC’s DevSecOps Practices and tools:
  • Stay up to date with the latest DevSecOps tools and technologies.
  • Continuously improve our processes and tools to enhance efficiency and security.

Collaborates:

• Provide guidance and support on how to measure application flows to ensure optimal performance and to identify application errors before they manifest in production.
• Collaborate with project team members to deliver secure technical solutions.
• Collaborate with security teams to address security risks and incidents within NSC’s DevSecOps domain.
• Implement and maintain DevSecOps workflow improvements to enhance collaboration and productivity.
• Participate in DevSecOps incident responses and troubleshooting when necessary.

Communicates Effectively:

• Communicate clearly and effectively across IT teams, NSC’s security team, business process owners, and customers.
• Communicate progress and challenges to management.
• Communicate DevSecOps security practices to application development teams with the help of NSC’s security team, as necessary.

Be Open and Authentic:

• Demonstrate openness to new?perspectives and ideas.
• Build trust with internal and external stakeholders by demonstrating consistency between words and actions.

Position may be required to perform other duties as required.

These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

What You Bring to the Table:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or Information Systems, or some equivalent combination of education and experience, including through military service.
• Proficiency with a combination of the following (typically acquired by 4-7 years of experience):
• Web protocols, Linux/Unix tools and web architecture, and GitLab/Jenkins.
• Release, Build, and Configuration Management or an equivalent number of years of combined development and release management experience.
• Building automated tools, DevOps solutions, and CI/CD processes via Java, Groovy, Python scripting and scripting within GitLab or similar tools.
• Maven Scripting.
• Open-Source technologies.
• Experience with the following:
• Evaluating, configuring, and integrating cloud-based services and tools.
• Build automation tools and source code control management tools such as Subversion, GitLab, or AWS Code Commit.
• Working with and defining code branching, build, deployment automation, and deployment strategies for diverse systems.
• Best practices, processes, and tools required to support a successful Continuous, Secure Integration System.
• Proficient in deploying releases and builds within an Agile environment and familiarity with Agile software development practices.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to communicate technical and nontechnical messages to all levels of staff.
• A initiative-taker with the demonstrated ability to work independently, with little supervision and be a team player.
• Detailed oriented with strong analytical and organizational skills and the demonstrated ability to resolve problems quickly and successfully.
• Must live within a commutable distance to Herndon, VA or in one of the Clearinghouse's approved States for hiring purposes. Refer to our HR Policies Page, located on our Careers site at https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/careers/human-resource-policies/, for more details.
• Must be at least 18 years old.

Additional Desired Requirements:

• Certification as an AWS DevOps Engineer.
• A desire for defining methods to achieve zero downtime deployments.
• Experience:
  • In automating deployments across an entire technology stack.
  • Configuring, deploying and versioning major and minor database releases in conjunction with versioned application deployments, preferably against Oracle Databases or cloud-based databases such as PostgreSQL/DynamoDB.
  • Configuring, deploying, and versioning major and minor WebLogic and/or Tomcat builds.
• Proficiency with:
  • Training QA and production support staff to perform automated deployments.
• Familiarity with DevOps tools/technologies such as Docker/Fargate, Lambda, CloudFormation, and/or Kubernetes.

Physical Demands:

• Use of a computer for 8 or more hours a day.
• Use of a copy machine and telephone.
• Frequently required to sit for 7 or more hours per day in close proximity to others in an open office environment.
• Occasionally required to use hands and fingers to operate, handle, and reach.
• Vision abilities include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
• May be required to work during maintenance windows, provide on-call remote, or 24/7 technical support.
• Must be able to travel occasionally via car and airplane to remote data center locations, as needed.

Benefits and Related Information

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents. Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account, are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses. We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible! We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays and up to 3 weeks of paid parental leave during a 12-month period. Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year. On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time. Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 11 paid holidays per year.

Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure and certain other qualifications. Employees can further their education and professional development by using our Employee Education Assistance Program, which establishes reimbursement for qualified education expenses upon successful completion of the program, and leveraging the enterprise-wide LinkedIn Learning subscription. There are additional employee benefits too, including but not limited to, mental health and wellness benefits. To find out more, please request a copy of our Benefits at a Glance!

Additionally, we reasonably believe that the salary range for this position is between $120,000 and $140,000.

The requisition will be open for a minimum of three days, and applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities: The National Student Clearinghouse is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer that does not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, marital status, veteran status (or known to have a spousal, family, business, social or other relationship or association with a protected veteran), sexual orientation, genetic information, arrest record, natural hairstyle, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws. Our management team is dedicated to this policy with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, benefits, employee activities and general treatment during employment.

Pay Transparency Notice: The National Student Clearinghouse is a federal contractor that abides by all applicable equal opportunity laws and regulations. Under these laws, companies doing business with the federal government must provide applicants and employees with certain policies, including the following information. The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)