Lead Devops/Build Engineer

Client: global healthcare companyJob: Lead DevOps/Build EngineerJob type: full-time/permanentLocation: 100% remote from the US (candidates must be located in EST or CST time zones)Pay: up to $180k base salary plus bonusPosition Summary We are seeking a hands-on DevOps / Build Engineering Lead to guide and mentor a team of DevOps engineers while contributing directly to continuous integration, build automation, software packaging, and developer-support activities. This team works closely with Java and Angular development teams and is deeply integrated into the software build process. The role is primarily focused on improving how software is built, packaged, tested, secured, and delivered—not on managing the underlying cloud or infrastructure environment, which is supported by dedicated infrastructure teams. The ideal candidate will bring strong experience in continuous integration, build engineering, release automation, software packaging, third-party component integration, and CI/CD optimization. Candidates whose experience is primarily centered on infrastructure deployment, operational maintenance, or one-time implementation projects may be less aligned with the needs of this position.Team Leadership & Coaching

• Lead, mentor, and support a team of DevOps and build engineers, including long-term planning, setting targets, follow-ups with team, growing the team, and performance reviews.
• Support employee career development, technical skill-building, and knowledge sharing across the team.
• Provide technical guidance and hands-on support for complex build, integration, packaging, and CI/CD challenges.

Build Engineering & Continuous Integration

• Design, maintain, and optimize automated software build and continuous integration processes using Jenkins, Bitbucket, Gradle, and related technologies.
• Partner closely with Java and Angular development teams to improve build processes, developer workflows, dependency management, artifact creation, and release practices.
• Manage the integration and lifecycle of third-party components, libraries, runtimes, container base images (including Java, Red Hat UBI, and open-source dependencies), ensuring software remains secure, current, and maintainable.
• Develop and maintain automated software packaging processes that consistently build, version, validate, and prepare applications for release.
• Troubleshoot build failures, dependency conflicts, versioning issues, integration defects, and packaging problems while improving build speed, reliability, repeatability, and traceability.
• Maintain artifact repositories, build metadata, and source-control integrations to support reliable software delivery.

CI/CD & Release Automation

• Maintain and enhance CI/CD pipelines supporting Java, Angular, and other software development workflows.
• Automate build, test, validation, security scanning, packaging, and deployment stages within CI/CD pipelines.
• Develop reusable pipeline templates, shared libraries, scripts, and automation frameworks.
• Improve pipeline reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability.
• Implement automated quality gates and controls to identify issues earlier in the software development lifecycle.
• Support release engineering activities, including version management, artifact promotion, release branching, and deployment readiness.
• Collaborate with development teams to improve developer experience and reduce friction throughout the software delivery process.
• Support continuous delivery and progressive delivery practices, including feature flags, canary releases, and controlled rollouts.

Cloud-Native & GitOps Transformation

• Drive the adoption of GitOps practices to automate deployment workflows, improve traceability, and reduce manual intervention.
• Implement and support GitOps tools such as Argo CD, Flux, or comparable technologies.
• Support containerization and cloud-native packaging strategies using Docker, Kubernetes, and related technologies.
• Collaborate with dedicated infrastructure teams to ensure build and delivery processes align with target hosting environments.

Automation Engineering

• Develop scripts, tools, and integrations to automate repetitive build, packaging, testing, release, and development-support activities.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate manual processes and improve engineering productivity.
• Build reusable automation capabilities that can be adopted across multiple applications and development teams.
• Support integration between source-control systems, CI platforms, build tools, artifact repositories, security tools, and deployment platforms.
• Apply software engineering practices to automation code, including version control, testing, documentation, peer review, and maintainability.

Observability, Reliability & Performance

• Develop and maintain observability for CI/CD pipelines, build systems, and software delivery workflows.
• Monitor build performance, pipeline reliability, failure rates, deployment frequency, and recovery metrics.
• Identify recurring build and integration issues and implement long-term corrective actions.
• Improve the resiliency and availability of build and delivery platforms.
• Use tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, or similar platforms to monitor system and pipeline health.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in DevOps, build engineering, release engineering, software configuration management, SRE, or a related engineering discipline.
• 2+ years of formal leadership experience within a DevOps, build engineering, release engineering, or software engineering team.
• Strong hands-on experience with continuous integration and automated software build processes.
• Strong experience supporting software development teams and working directly within application build workflows.
• Experience with Jenkins, Bitbucket, Gradle, and source-control-based development processes.
• Experience building, maintaining, and troubleshooting CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with software packaging, artifact creation, versioning, dependency management, and release automation.
• Experience integrating and updating software components, libraries, runtimes, dependencies, or container base images.
• Familiarity with Java and Java-based build processes.
• Experience with public cloud platforms (AWS) and their DevOps toolchains.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and configuration automation.
• Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with GitOps tools such as Argo CD, Flux, or similar platforms.
• Strong troubleshooting skills related to build failures, dependency conflicts, software packaging, CI pipelines, and development tooling.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work across technical teams and geographic locations.