Principal Devops Engineer Jobs in Virginia
Principal Devops Engineer jobs in Virginia are among the most active in the country, concentrated in federal IT contracting, defense systems, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity across a market that draws candidates at every level from senior engineer to distinguished architect. The heaviest hiring runs through Northern Virginia, Richmond, and the Hampton Roads corridor, where employers like Leidos, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Amazon Web Services maintain deep engineering operations. Platform engineering, Kubernetes orchestration, and FedRAMP compliance automation are the most sought-after specialties right now. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Showing 5 of 7+ Principal Devops Engineer jobs
Description
At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.Northrop Grumman’s Space Sector is seeking a DevOps Engineer – Level 2 or Level 3 to join our team in Aurora, CO to support on-premises mission systems by operating, maintaining, and incrementally enhancing existing DevOps and platform solutions. The engineer will work within established architectures and standards rather than designing new solutions, focusing on reliability, security, and continuous improvement of current environments. The position can be based in Fairfax, VA.
In this job, you will:
Operate and maintain existing GitLab CI/CD infrastructure including patching and permissions. Advise on updates to jobs, runners, variables, and approvals to improve stability and throughput.
Administer Nexus artifact repositories including patching, backups, access management, repository configuration, cleanup/retention policies, and routine health checks.
Maintain Apache NiFi infrastructure including patching, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and implementing changes defined by senior engineers.
Support installation and day-to-day operations of Kubernetes on-prem clusters, including patching, storage management, deployments, rollouts/rollbacks, configuration updates, and resource adjustments.
Maintain and extend monitoring and alerting using Grafana and Prometheus for on-prem infrastructure and applications, including patching, access control, refining dashboards, alert rules, and service onboarding within existing observability patterns.
Implement incremental improvements to existing DevOps tooling and workflows (e.g., adding tests, improving pipeline stages, automating manual steps) consistent with established designs and security baselines.
Perform routine incident response and problem resolution for build, deployment, and runtime issues across CI/CD, Kubernetes, Nexus, NiFi, and supporting services.
Apply existing security and compliance controls across the DevOps toolchain: secrets management, access controls, certificate and credential rotation, image scanning, and log retention in accordance with program requirements.
Follow formal change management processes, including documenting changes, participating in reviews, and updating runbooks, SOPs, and technical documentation.
Collaborate with senior engineers, system administrators, and developers to implement improvements and operational changes defined by leads and architects.
Other duties as assigned
This position can be staffed at a level 2 or 3 based on the basic qualifications below.
Basic Qualifications:
Level 2: Bachelor’s in STEM degree with 2 years of professional experience; Master’s in STEM degree with 0 years of professional experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.
Level 3: Bachelor’s in STEM degree with 5 years of professional experience; Master’s in STEM degree with 3 years of professional experience; PhD with 0 years of experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.
Requires an active Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance at time of application
Must have the ability to obtain and maintain U.S. Government Full Scope Polygraph.
Relevant DevOps, site reliability, or systems engineering experience.
Demonstrated experience maintaining GitLab CI/CD in an on-prem environment
Practical experience administering Nexus repositories
Experience supporting Apache NiFi infrastructure
Working knowledge of on-prem Kubernetes operations
Experience using Grafana and Prometheus in an on-prem context
Proficiency with Linux systems administration fundamentals and at least one scripting language (e.g., Bash, Python) for automation and operational tasks.
Familiarity with operating in secure, classified, or highly regulated on-prem environments and adherence to associated processes (security, configuration control, and auditing).
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; ability to methodically diagnose issues across multiple interconnected services.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience using Helm and Rancher
Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) for maintaining existing on-prem infrastructure definitions and playbooks.
Experience with log aggregation and analysis platforms in on-prem environments (e.g., ELK/EFK or similar).
Experience working within formal change control and release management processes.
Exposure to microservices running on Kubernetes and related operational patterns (service discovery, scaling, health checks).
Behavioral Competencies
Operational ownership: Proactively monitors, maintains, and improves existing on-prem systems and DevOps toolchains.
Continuous improvement mindset: Identifies and implements incremental enhancements within established architectures and constraints.
Team collaboration: Works closely with senior engineers, system administrators, security, and development teams to execute defined technical directions.
Discipline and rigor: Adheres to security, configuration management, and documentation expectations in a classified on-prem environment.
Description
At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people's lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation's history - from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they're making history.Northrop Grumman’s Space Sector is seeking a DevOps Engineer – Level 2 or Level 3 to join our team in Aurora, CO to support on-premises mission systems by operating, maintaining, and incrementally enhancing existing DevOps and platform solutions. The engineer will work within established architectures and standards rather than designing new solutions, focusing on reliability, security, and continuous improvement of current environments. The position can be based in Fairfax, VA.
In this job, you will:
Operate and maintain existing GitLab CI/CD infrastructure including patching and permissions. Advise on updates to jobs, runners, variables, and approvals to improve stability and throughput.
Administer Nexus artifact repositories including patching, backups, access management, repository configuration, cleanup/retention policies, and routine health checks.
Maintain Apache NiFi infrastructure including patching, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and implementing changes defined by senior engineers.
Support installation and day-to-day operations of Kubernetes on-prem clusters, including patching, storage management, deployments, rollouts/rollbacks, configuration updates, and resource adjustments.
Maintain and extend monitoring and alerting using Grafana and Prometheus for on-prem infrastructure and applications, including patching, access control, refining dashboards, alert rules, and service onboarding within existing observability patterns.
Implement incremental improvements to existing DevOps tooling and workflows (e.g., adding tests, improving pipeline stages, automating manual steps) consistent with established designs and security baselines.
Perform routine incident response and problem resolution for build, deployment, and runtime issues across CI/CD, Kubernetes, Nexus, NiFi, and supporting services.
Apply existing security and compliance controls across the DevOps toolchain: secrets management, access controls, certificate and credential rotation, image scanning, and log retention in accordance with program requirements.
Follow formal change management processes, including documenting changes, participating in reviews, and updating runbooks, SOPs, and technical documentation.
Collaborate with senior engineers, system administrators, and developers to implement improvements and operational changes defined by leads and architects.
Other duties as assigned
This position can be staffed at a level 2 or 3 based on the basic qualifications below.
Basic Qualifications:
Level 2: Bachelor’s in STEM degree with 2 years of professional experience; Master’s in STEM degree with 0 years of professional experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.
Level 3: Bachelor’s in STEM degree with 5 years of professional experience; Master’s in STEM degree with 3 years of professional experience; PhD with 0 years of experience. Will consider an additional 4+ years of experience in lieu of degree.
Requires an active Top-Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance at time of application
Must have the ability to obtain and maintain U.S. Government Full Scope Polygraph.
Relevant DevOps, site reliability, or systems engineering experience.
Demonstrated experience maintaining GitLab CI/CD in an on-prem environment
Practical experience administering Nexus repositories
Experience supporting Apache NiFi infrastructure
Working knowledge of on-prem Kubernetes operations
Experience using Grafana and Prometheus in an on-prem context
Proficiency with Linux systems administration fundamentals and at least one scripting language (e.g., Bash, Python) for automation and operational tasks.
Familiarity with operating in secure, classified, or highly regulated on-prem environments and adherence to associated processes (security, configuration control, and auditing).
Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; ability to methodically diagnose issues across multiple interconnected services.
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience using Helm and Rancher
Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible) for maintaining existing on-prem infrastructure definitions and playbooks.
Experience with log aggregation and analysis platforms in on-prem environments (e.g., ELK/EFK or similar).
Experience working within formal change control and release management processes.
Exposure to microservices running on Kubernetes and related operational patterns (service discovery, scaling, health checks).
Behavioral Competencies
Operational ownership: Proactively monitors, maintains, and improves existing on-prem systems and DevOps toolchains.
Continuous improvement mindset: Identifies and implements incremental enhancements within established architectures and constraints.
Team collaboration: Works closely with senior engineers, system administrators, security, and development teams to execute defined technical directions.
Discipline and rigor: Adheres to security, configuration management, and documentation expectations in a classified on-prem environment.
See All 7 Principal Devops Engineer Jobs in Virginia
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Find JobsPrincipal Devops Engineer Jobs by City in Virginia
Where Virginia roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Principal Devops Engineer Job Market in Virginia
A snapshot from current Virginia openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Aerospace & Defense
What Virginia Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in principal devops engineer jobs across Virginia.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, or a related engineering discipline
- Ten or more years of devops or site reliability engineering experience with infrastructure at scale
- Deep expertise in Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipeline design and governance
- Experience operating in FedRAMP, DoD IL4, or other federal compliance environments
- Active DoD security clearance or eligibility to obtain a Secret or Top Secret clearance
- Demonstrated leadership of devops platform teams and cross-functional engineering organizations
Principal Devops Engineer Jobs in Virginia: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a principal devops engineer in Virginia?
The most direct path in Virginia is building a foundation in systems engineering or software development, then accumulating hands-on infrastructure leadership experience within the federal contracting ecosystem that dominates the state. Virginia does not require a state-issued license for devops engineers, but obtaining a CompTIA Security+, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, or Certified Kubernetes Administrator credential significantly strengthens candidacy. Many principal-level roles in Northern Virginia also require or strongly prefer candidates who can obtain a federal security clearance.
How much do principal devops engineers make in Virginia?
Principal devops engineers in Virginia earn a median of about $136,460 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $83,350 for the lowest 10% to over $211,930 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire principal devops engineers in Virginia?
Employers hiring principal devops engineers in Virginia right now include Northrop Grumman, Collins Aerospace, and Swift, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of August 2026. Virginia's concentration of defense contractors and cloud infrastructure providers means many of these openings sit inside large federal program offices or hyperscaler operations in Northern Virginia and the Richmond area.
Which Virginia cities have the most principal devops engineer jobs?
Fairfax, Sterling, and Manassas account for the most principal devops engineer openings in Virginia. Northern Virginia drives the largest share because it is home to the country's densest concentration of federal contractors and data center campuses, while Richmond draws demand from financial services and state government IT modernization programs, and Hampton Roads hiring is anchored by Navy and defense technology operations.
Are there remote principal devops engineer jobs in Virginia?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 0% of principal devops engineer openings tied to Virginia are remote or hybrid as of August 2026, reflecting the cloud-native and infrastructure-as-code nature of the work. Roles that involve classified federal systems or on-premises data center operations are more likely to require on-site presence, while commercial cloud platform and SRE positions tend to be the most remote-friendly.
How can I get hired as a principal devops engineer in Virginia with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry point is a junior systems administrator, cloud support engineer, or DevOps associate role inside one of Virginia's large federal IT contractors, where internal mobility programs at organizations like Leidos, SAIC, or General Dynamics IT regularly move early-career engineers onto platform teams. Completing a CompTIA Linux+ or AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification before applying gives a measurable edge, and starting the security clearance process early removes the single biggest barrier to advancement in Virginia's dominant contracting market.
Where can I find and apply to principal devops engineer jobs in Virginia?
You can find and apply to principal devops engineer jobs in Virginia on Migrate Mate, which lists current Virginia openings across Northern Virginia, Richmond, Hampton Roads, and beyond. Find the roles that fit your background and apply directly from each listing.
See All 7 Principal Devops Engineer Jobs in Virginia
Find roles in Virginia that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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