Automation Engineer

What you'll do:

Be part of the team modernizing enterprise IT operations for a federal customer, bringing automation, orchestration, and a little machine-assisted intelligence to infrastructure that a whole lot of people rely on every single day.

• Build and maintain Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation/ARM) so environments provision themselves consistently, repeatably, and without the 2 a.m. surprises.
• Design and deploy Robotic Process Automation (RPA) workflows that take the soul-crushing, repetitive tasks off people's plates.
• Stand up and tune AIOps and observability platforms (think Splunk ITSI, Dynatrace, Datadog, Moogsoft/BigPanda, or ScienceLogic) to correlate events, spot anomalies, and trigger auto-remediation before small problems become big ones.
• Automate across both AWS and Azure, plus on-prem. Because the real world is hybrid and we roll with it.
• Write clean, reusable scripts in Python, PowerShell, and Bash that make everyone's life easier.
• Plug automation into CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps toolchains for fast, reliable, secure delivery.
• Support 24x7 operations by engineering the monitoring, orchestration, and backup/recovery tooling that keeps availability high and downtime low.
• Keep things patched, hardened, and compliant, helping remediate vulnerabilities and apply security updates on schedule.
• Document your automation like the pro you are and track the error-reduction and efficiency wins so everyone can see the magic.
• Team up with engineers, network folks, and developers to hunt down manual toil and replace it with something smarter.

What we'd like you to have:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or similar.
• At least 3 years of relevant experience.
• Solid hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code. Terraform and Ansible are your friends.
• Automation chops: RPA, orchestration, and scripting (Python, PowerShell, Bash) that you can show off.
• Cloud fluency across AWS and/or Azure, and comfort operating in hybrid on-prem environments.
• Experience with monitoring, observability, or AIOps platforms and a knack for turning noisy alerts into useful signal.
• Working knowledge of ITIL service management and how automation fits into change, patch, and vulnerability management.
• Familiarity with federal security frameworks (FISMA, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP), or the eagerness to learn them fast.
• A curious, problem-solving brain and the good vibes to match. You make the team better.

What would blow us away:

• Certifications like AWS/Azure Associate-or-above, Terraform Associate, or ITIL 4.
• You've built self-healing automation that genuinely reduced incidents, and you have the metrics to prove it.
• Prior experience supporting a federal or DHS environment.
• A sense of humor. You know how to light up the room (or the Slack channel).

Even if you don't meet 100% of the qualifications, we encourage you to apply. At Skyward, we're focused on hiring individuals with the right skills and passion to grow, not just checking off every box.

And now the important part. What we offer you:

• Medical, dental, vision
• 15 days of paid leave
• 7 days of sick leave
• 2 days bereavement leave
• 11 paid Federal holidays
• Up to 40 hours for jury duty
• 401K with 4% employer contribution (and no vesting period)
• Up to 4 weeks of paid paternity and maternity leave
• Company provided laptop
• $5,000 per year for professional development
• $600 per year for technical supplies and equipment
• $2,000 referral bonus
• Life and disability insurance
• HSA and FSA
• Legal Shield and ID Shield Voluntary Benefits
• Opportunity to work in a collaborative, motivated team focused on modernizing government services with cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions. Who says government work can't be exciting!

At Skyward, we support flexible working hours and remote opportunities to help maintain a healthy work-life balance for all employees.