DevOps Engineer, Jira

DevOps Engineer - ONSITE - Washington, DC - 1 year contract - 75-85/hr

Our client, a federal government agency, requires a DevOps Engineer to deploy, configure, administer, and integrate Jira SaaS in Atlassian GovCloud with other enterprise applications in their ecosystem. This is a 1 year renewable contract requiring the resource to work onsite in Washington, DC.

The objectives of this role are to:

Administer, configure, and integrate Jira SaaS for GovCloud within the client’s ecosystem.

Consolidate enterprise collaborative planning tools—transitioning from On-prem Azure DevOps and GitLab to Jira SaaS for government.

Build robust, automated, and secure integrations between Jira SaaS and core enterprise systems (ServiceNow, GitLab), enabling end-to-end visibility across planning, development and operations

This candidate will be selected for their strategic and technical acumen.

Responsibilities

• Administration:

• Administer, configure, and optimize Jira SaaS to meet enterprise project management and Agile delivery needs.

• Design and maintain custom workflows, issue types, screens, fields, and automation rules aligned with organizational Agile frameworks and guidelines.

• Manage user permissions, group roles, and security schemes to ensure governance and compliance.

• Monitor Jira license utilization, user growth, and application usage to ensure efficient use of subscriptions.

• Collaborate with procurement teams to support renewal, optimization, and budget decisions.

• System Integration & Development:

• Design, implement, and maintain seamless integrations between Jira with other enterprise systems, such as GitLab (source control & CI/CD), and ServiceNow (ITSM), using Okta, REST APIs, webhooks, middleware, and scripting.

• Automate data synchronization across platforms to support traceability from planning to release.

• Troubleshoot and optimize integration pipelines to ensure performance, security, and scalability.

• Partner with infrastructure and cybersecurity teams to align integrations with enterprise security and compliance standards.

• Develop and maintain technical documentation, standards, and best practices.

• Agile Enablement

• Partner with the Agile Transformation Office to translate Agile practices into effective Jira configurations and usage patterns.

• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and teams on best-practice tool utilization.

• Support reporting and analytics initiatives, ensuring reliable Agile metrics (velocity, burndown, cycle time, etc.).

• Support and enable teams transition from Azure DevOps Boards, Gitlab, Jira (hosted) to JIRA SaaS.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

• At least 3 years of hands-on experience administering and/or engineering Jira (Self-hosting or SaaS).

• Proven, hands-on experience developing custom integrations with enterprise platforms, especially GitLab and ServiceNow.

• Proficiency in scripting (Python, PowerShell, or JavaScript) and REST API integration.

• Strong understanding of Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and DevSecOps principles.

• Experience in enterprise migrations from Azure DevOps or similar tools to Jira.

• Familiarity with Atlassian ecosystem (Confluence, Bitbucket) and marketplace apps.

• Experience with information security, privacy, and risk assessment standards including FISMA, SOX, FedRAMP, etc.

• Atlassian Certified Professional (ACP-620, ACP-120, or equivalent) preferred.

• Experience in the federal government is preferred