DevOps Software Engineer - TS/SCI at Falcon IT and Staffing Solutions
MD
—
Aug 18, 2026
MD
Aug 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A DevOps Software Engineer role embedded on-site at the DIA-NMEC customer location in Bethesda, MD, supporting a long-running intelligence community program. The work centers on deploying and maintaining a containerized microservices platform built around Kubernetes, Elasticsearch, and Kafka, while also building and improving CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure automation. Suited to an experienced engineer comfortable operating production big-data systems in a cleared, cross-functional environment.
Senior level · 8+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 20, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The role is classified as 15-1252 (Software Developers) because the primary work involves designing, deploying, and building CI/CD pipelines and containerized infrastructure — shipping code and automation — rather than purely operating systems someone else built. 15-1244 is a genuine runner-up given the significant systems administration and infrastructure operations component.
The degree requirement accepts 'equivalent experience' in lieu of a Bachelor's, so no formal degree is treated as a hard gate.
The posting states an active TS/SCI is required to start; a CI Polygraph is listed as desired but not required at hire.
Helm appears in both the required qualifications body ('Use Helm to configure Kubernetes deployments') and the Bonus Points section ('Helm / Helmfile'). It is marked required based on its appearance in the core responsibilities; Helmfile is captured as an alternative/extension.
Kafka appears in the required responsibilities ('Deploy, triage, and maintain a production big-data pipeline built on Kubernetes, Elasticsearch, and Kafka') but is listed again under Bonus Points. Given the Bonus Points section explicitly calls it out as a differentiator, it is marked preferred to reflect the ambiguity — the pipeline context suggests familiarity is expected, but the posting does not firmly gate on it in the qualifications block.
Development languages (Bash, PowerShell, SALT, Python, Groovy, Java) are listed entirely under Bonus Points and are marked preferred.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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