Overview
The DevOps Engineer will play a crucial role in advancing the CDC Foundation’s mission by providing engineering and technical guidance for the design, planning, development, and delivery of critical applications in a public health organization. This role is aligned to the Workforce Acceleration Initiative (WAI). WAI is a federally funded CDC Foundation program with the goal of helping the nation’s public health agencies by providing them with the technology and data experts they need to accelerate their information system improvements.
Working within the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, the DevOps Engineer will drive optimizations and improvements in the security, agility, responsiveness, and efficiency of deployment environments and applications. The candidate will be responsible for designing, deploying, and maintaining secure cloud environments while building the automated integrations within Snowflake to enable automated data linkage and exchange across core public health systems. The role ensures that infrastructure, security controls, and deployment pipelines are robust, scalable, and reliable enough to support high‑volume, mission‑critical data flows.
The DevOps Engineer will be hired by the CDC Foundation and assigned to the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, Public Health and Safety Division This position is eligible for a fully remote work arrangement for U.S. based candidates.
Responsibilities
AWS Cloud Infrastructure & Modernization
- Assess existing AWS-based public health data systems, including compute resources, databases, networking, integrations, and security configurations.
- Design, implement, and document AWS cloud infrastructure to support secure, scalable public health data systems.
- Support cloud environment setup and refinement across development, testing, and production environments.
- Support cloud migration and modernization activities, including planning, testing, cutover support, rollback planning, and post-deployment stabilization.
- Develop and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform to automate provisioning and ensure consistent, repeatable deployments.
Security, Compliance & Platform Reliability
- Implement and document security controls aligned with state and federal standards, including encryption, role-based access control (RBAC), secrets management, and network protections.
- Configure AWS and Snowflake security features to protect sensitive public health data.
- Support security reviews, risk identification, and remediation planning related to cloud infrastructure and data platforms.
- Create and improve monitoring, logging, and alerting to increase system visibility and support operational readiness.
- Contribute to incident analysis and post-incident reviews related to migration or modernization activities, focusing on prevention and system improvement.
Snowflake Data Platform & Integration Enablement
- Support the configuration and management of Snowflake environments used for public health data storage, linkage, and analysis.
- Build and manage secure Snowflake data integrations that enable automated data exchange across public health surveillance systems.
- Support role management, access controls, and performance optimization within Snowflake.
- Assist with the design and implementation of API-based integrations and reverse-ETL workflows to transmit data securely between systems.
DevOps Automation & Deployment Support
- Establish and support CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and data integration deployments.
- Assist application and data teams with deploying infrastructure and services in a reliable, automated manner.
- Review infrastructure and integration code and consult with other engineers on reliability, security, and performance considerations.
- Support configuration management and automation practices to reduce manual effort and improve consistency.
Testing, Validation & Quality Support
- Support functional, performance, and security testing to validate cloud infrastructure and integration workflows.
- Assist with load and capacity testing related to migration or integration activities to ensure systems can support expected usage.
- Document testing results and remediation actions as part of modernization deliverables.
Documentation & Knowledge Transfer
- Develop and maintain technical documentation, including AWS architecture diagrams, Snowflake environment documentation, deployment guides, and operational runbooks.
- Provide structured knowledge transfer and technical walkthroughs to Montana DPHHS IT and public health staff to build internal capacity.
- Support the transition of systems and documentation to long-term operational ownership by Montana teams.
Collaboration & Technical Advisory
- Collaborate with cross-functional partners to translate public health data and system needs into AWS- and Snowflake-based technical solutions.
- Map technical requirements to appropriate platform capabilities and recommend practical implementation approaches.
- Identify technical risks, dependencies, and constraints (e.g., cloud readiness, security approvals, vendor dependencies) and communicate them proactively.
- Up to 10% of domestic travel may be required.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field.
- Minimum of five (5) years of experience in complex technology implementations in a product-centric environment.
- Experience developing or supporting software with an emphasis on reliability, automation, testing, monitoring, and scalability.
- Experience with deployment, infrastructure, or systems operations, including scripting and configuration to improve planning, testing, and release processes.
- Working knowledge of DevOps tools and practices and an understanding of modern system architectures, including cloud, data, application, and network components.
- Experience applying software engineering best practices across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), including version control, code reviews, build processes, and testing.
- Proficiency in one or more programming or scripting languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript, or Ruby.
- Experience designing, supporting, or integrating API-based systems.
- Experience working with relational and non-relational databases (e.g., MySQL, MongoDB, or similar platforms).
- Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders to establish a shared understanding of technical objectives and implementation approaches.
- Ability to analyze complex technical requirements and translate them into scalable technical solutions.
- Familiarity with Agile development methodologies and collaborative delivery practices.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
- Experience working on cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams delivering technical solutions in an incremental, user-focused manner.
- Flexibility to adapt to evolving project requirements and priorities.
- Strong interpersonal and teamwork skills, with the ability to build productive working relationships with colleagues, stakeholders, and partners.
- Experience working in a virtual or remote team environment.
- Proficiency with standard productivity tools such as Microsoft Office.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting AWS cloud environments, including infrastructure provisioning, identity and access management (IAM), networking, and security controls.
- Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform.
- Experience supporting or administering Snowflake environments, including access controls and data integrations.
- Experience supporting cloud migrations, infrastructure modernization, or major platform transitions.
- Familiarity with public sector, public health, or healthcare data systems.
- Familiarity with healthcare data exchange standards such as HL7 (FHIR, v2/v3, CDA).
- Experience supporting API-based integrations and automated data exchange workflows.
- Experience with monitoring, logging, and observability tools in cloud or data platform environments.
- Experience contributing to security reviews, compliance efforts, or audit-readiness activities.
- Experience developing technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and operational runbooks.
Job Highlights
- Location: Remote, must be based in the United States, Up to 10% of domestic travel may be required.
- Time zone: Candidates must be able to work business hours in Mountain Time (MT) with flexibility
- Salary Range: $103,500 - $143,500 per year, plus benefits. Individual salary offers will be based on experience and qualifications unique to each candidate.
- Position Type: Grant funded, limited-term opportunity
- Position End Date: June 30, 2027
Special Notes
This role is involved in a dynamic public health program. As such, roles and responsibilities are subject to change as situations evolve. Roles and responsibilities listed above may be expanded upon or updated to match priorities and needs, once written approval is received by the CDC Foundation in order to best support the public health programming.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, mental or physical disabilities, veteran status, and all other characteristics protected by law. We comply with all applicable laws including E.O. 11246 and the Vietnam Era Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 governing employment practices and do not discriminate on the basis of any unlawful criteria in accordance with 41 C.F.R. §§ 60-300.5(a)(12) and 60-741.5(a)(7). As a federal government contractor, we take affirmative action on behalf of protected veterans.
CDC Foundation is a smoke-free environment.
Relocation expenses are not included.
About the CDC Foundation
The CDC Foundation helps CDC save and improve lives by unleashing the power of collaboration between CDC, philanthropies, corporations, organizations and individuals to protect the health, safety and security of America and the world. The CDC Foundation is the go-to nonprofit authorized by Congress to mobilize philanthropic partners and private-sector resources to support CDC’s critical health protection mission. The CDC Foundation manages hundreds of programs each year impacting a variety of health threats from chronic disease conditions including cardiovascular disease and cancer, to infectious diseases like rotavirus and HIV, to emergency responses, including COVID-19 and Ebola. Visit www.cdcfoundation.org for more information.