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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Director of DevOps and Tooling - **Company:** Forterra - **Location:** Clarksburg, WV, United States - **Experience:** Experienced - **Salary:** $175,000.0 - $250,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Amazon Web Services, Computing Platforms, Automation of Tests, Business Systems, C Sharp (Programming Language), Cloud Computing, Code Review, Computer Engineering, Continuous Integration, Data Infrastructure, DevOps, Programming Tools, Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulation, Issue Tracking Systems, Python (Programming Language), Network Architecture, Open Source Technology, Cloud Services, Ansible, Prometheus, Software Engineering, TypeScript, Grafana, Gitlab-ci, Kubernetes, Information Technology, Hardware Infrastructure, Terraform, Software Version Control, Jenkins, Golang - **Published:** August 6, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.adzuna.com/details/5828780545 ## About the Role * 10+ years of software, infrastructure, or DevOps engineering experience, including 3+ years leading and growing engineering teams. * B.S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field - or equivalent hands-on experience. Demonstrated depth matters more than the specific degree. * Deep hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and infrastructure-as-code tooling such as Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent. * Production experience with Kubernetes and container-based workloads, including operating clusters rather than only consuming them. * Demonstrated ownership of CI/CD systems (GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent) at organizational scale, with measurable improvements to build, test, or release cycle time. * Experience operating in a regulated or controlled environment, with working knowledge of ITAR, NIST 800-171, or comparable security and compliance frameworks. * Proficiency in at least one general-purpose language (e.g., Python, Go, C#, TypeScript) sufficient to build and maintain tooling directly, not only review it. * Experience with observability and monitoring stacks (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana) and with defining and holding reliability targets. * Ability to work credibly with hardware and embedded teams and reason about test infrastructure that includes physical devices. * Must be a U.S. Person and eligible to obtain a security clearance in the future. No current clearance is to start. Preferred Qualifications * Experience founding or rebuilding a DevOps, platform, or infrastructure function from scratch. * Background in aerospace, defense, automotive, robotics, or another hardware-intensive engineering environment. * Experience with AWS GovCloud, Landing Zone Accelerator, or large-scale controlled-environment migrations. * Track record of significant infrastructure cost reduction without loss of capability or compliance posture. * Experience owning business-critical internal systems (ERP, MES, PLM) or integrating them with engineering toolchains. * Experience building and managing distributed or near-shore engineering teams. ## Description We are looking for a Director of DevOps and Tooling to own the infrastructure, developer platforms, and toolchain that every engineering team at Forterra builds on. Autonomy programs live or die on iteration speed: how fast a controls engineer can get a change onto a vehicle, how quickly a perception team can replay a field log, how much simulation a program can run overnight. You'll own the systems that determine those answers. This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll build and lead the team, but you'll also be in the CI/CD pipelines, in Terraform, and in the room when a compliance boundary and a delivery deadline collide. Because we operate in a controlled defense environment, you'll be responsible for platforms that are simultaneously fast for engineers and defensible to auditors - ITAR-controlled, NIST 800-171 aligned, and built to support programs of record. What you'll do Platform Architecture & Strategy * Own the technical roadmap for cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, developer tooling, and internal platforms across the company. * Define build-vs-buy strategy for engineering tooling, and make the tradeoff calls between vendor solutions, open source, and in-house development. * Set standards for infrastructure-as-code, environment reproducibility, artifact management, and release engineering, and drive adoption across engineering teams. * Partner with the executive team on multi-year platform investment, vendor strategy, and organizational scaling plans. Infrastructure, Cloud & Compliance * Design, operate, and scale cloud and on-premise infrastructure supporting autonomy development, vehicle software, simulation, and back-office systems. * Own architecture and operation of controlled environments (e.g., AWS GovCloud or equivalent) that satisfy NIST 800-171, CMMC, and ITAR requirements without becoming a bottleneck to engineering velocity. * Drive infrastructure cost efficiency through capacity planning, workload right-sizing, and account and network architecture. * Establish observability, alerting, and incident response practices for internal platforms, and own uptime and reliability targets for the services engineering depends on. Developer Tooling & CI/CD * Own the end-to-end developer experience: source control, code review, build, test, artifact promotion, and deployment. * Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that support embedded, robotics, and cloud workloads, including cross-compilation, hardware targets, and long-running simulation jobs. * Drive down build, test, and deployment times as a first-class engineering objective, and instrument the toolchain so bottlenecks are measurable rather than anecdotal. * Own and operate core internal platforms (source control, issue tracking, documentation, artifact repositories, and business systems integrations) as production services with defined SLAs. Test Infrastructure & Automation * Partner with vehicle software, controls, and autonomy teams to build and scale automated test infrastructure, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) benches and virtualized/containerized test racks. * Build the data infrastructure that lets engineers ingest, store, index, and replay vehicle telemetry and field logs at scale. * Enable regression and scenario testing to run continuously against every change, so integration issues surface in the lab rather than on the vehicle. Team Leadership * Hire, grow, and lead a team of DevOps, platform, and infrastructure engineers, including distributed and near-shore staff where appropriate. * Establish a blameless operational culture: clear ownership, honest postmortems, sustainable on-call. * Mentor engineers on infrastructure and automation practice, and develop the next layer of technical leadership on the team. * Manage roadmap, prioritization, and delivery commitments against the needs of multiple competing programs. Cross-Functional Collaboration * Work closely with software, controls, systems, and program engineering leads to understand what their workflows actually need and where the toolchain is failing them. * Partner with IT, Security, and Compliance to keep engineering environments both usable and auditable. * Translate infrastructure and compliance constraints into terms program and executive stakeholders can act on. ## Related Videos - [We adopted DevOps and are Cloud-native, Now What?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/485-we-adopted-devops-and-are-cloud-native-now-what) - [Go with the Flow: Stop the Leaks Before Your Memory's a Waterfall!](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100073-go-with-the-flow-stop-the-leaks-before-your-memory-s-a-waterfall) - [From DevOps to Scaled DevOps: How We’re Rebuilding Continuous Delivery as a Platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100018-from-devops-to-scaled-devops-how-we-re-rebuilding-continuous-delivery-as-a-platform) - [The Road to MLOps: How Verivox Transitioned to AWS](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1050-the-road-to-mlops-how-verivox-transitioned-to-aws) - [#90DaysOfDevOps - The DevOps Learning Journey](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/548-90daysofdevops-the-devops-learning-journey) - [Retooling and refactoring - an investment in people.](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/371-retooling-and-refactoring-an-investment-in-people) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Now is the time for industrialized software development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/601-now-is-the-time-for-industrialized-software-development) - [Why Attend a Developer Event in 2026?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/688-why-attend-a-developer-event-in-2026) - [Is Software Engineering Over-Saturated?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/418-is-software-engineering-over-saturated) - [Fully Remote Software Engineer Jobs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/447-fully-remote-software-engineer-jobs) - [What Makes WeAreDevelopers World Congress Different From Every Other Tech Event?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/701-what-makes-wearedevelopers-world-congress-different-from-every-other-tech-event)