Lead DevOps Engineer

About Neon One

At Neon One, we believe that technology is the key to building vibrant communities of generosity. As a leader in nonprofit software since 2004, we create intuitive solutions that help small and mid-sized nonprofits connect with people, build trust, and make good happen every day.

Our culture is powered by empathy, innovation, and a shared mission to empower organizations making a difference. We operate with a customer-first mindset, take pride in extraordinary results, and grow together by supporting each other and embracing bold new ideas. If you’re passionate about using your skills to drive real impact and want to thrive in a collaborative, fully remote environment, Neon One is the place for you.

The Lead DevOps Engineer is a foundational team leader for Neon One’s DevOps, helping to build and mature the cloud backbone that will power our next generation of products, ensure bulletproof reliability, and accelerate innovation for the thousands of non-profits we serve. This is an opportunity to be a leading member of a growing team, define and grow our infrastructure strategy, and work with a diverse technology ecosystem supporting a powerful mission.

As the Lead DevOps Engineer, you will be the principal engineer and hands-on leader of the systems that ensure our applications are delivered securely, reliably, and efficiently. You will mature our cloud operations, implement a robust framework for automation and observability, and help guide the team in building a world-class platform. Your work will directly empower our product engineering teams to ship features faster and with greater confidence, and your leadership will be instrumental in scaling our infrastructure to meet the future needs of the social good sector. If you are a hands-on contributor passionate about building resilient, scalable systems to solve meaningful problems, this role is for you.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and Mature our DevOps Practice:

• Lead and mentor a growing team of DevOps engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Set the technical direction, define the team’s roadmap in partnership with architecture, and establish best practices for the entire organization.

Build and Scale Cloud-Native Infrastructure:

• Take ownership of our AWS environment and drive our Infrastructure as Code (IaC) strategy using tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Serverless Framework.

• Design and implement resilient, scalable, and cost-effective cloud architectures for our diverse product suite, evolving our use of serverless technologies such as Lambdas, ECS, Aurora and RDS, while supporting legacy systems in transition.

Champion Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Principles:

• Embed SRE practices into our culture.

• Define and monitor Service Level Objectives (SLOs), lead the evolution of our observability stack (NewRelic) to provide deep system insights, and own the incident management lifecycle to minimize impact and drive preventative action.

Optimize the Software Delivery Lifecycle:

• Design, build, and govern the CI/CD pipelines that serve as the freeway for our engineering teams.

• Work to improve developer experience, reduce lead time for changes, and ensure that every deployment is automated, safe, and repeatable.

Enable AI and Machine Learning Initiatives:

• Partner with our Data Team to design, build, and manage the scalable AWS infrastructure required for machine learning model training and deployment. This includes provisioning and securing services like AWS SageMaker and Bedrock, ensuring a robust infrastructure and optimizing our AI workloads for performance and cost.

Embed Security and Compliance (DevSecOps):

• Work with the Security and Compliance team to integrate security into every phase of the infrastructure and software lifecycle.

• Lead the implementation of security best practices (e.g., IAM, network security, vulnerability management).

• Work closely with the Compliance team to ensure compliance and provide support for PCI-DSS audits.

Champion and Create Clear Documentation:

• Establish and maintain a comprehensive library of technical documentation, including infrastructure diagrams, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and support engineering teams in building incident response runbooks.

• Create a single source of truth that empowers both your team and the wider engineering organization.

Collaborate and Empower:

• Partner closely with engineering, product, security, and internal operations stakeholders to understand their needs and provide them with the platform and tools required for success.

• Serve as the technical advisor for all things infrastructure, guiding teams on cloud strategy and operational best practices.

Must-Haves

• 6+ years of hands-on experience in DevOps or Cloud Infrastructure within AWS with a proven track record of managing and scaling production cloud environments.

• Demonstrated experience in a technical leadership or mentorship role.

• Deep, expert-level knowledge of AWS, including architecting for security, reliability, and scale.

• Advanced proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, with a strong preference for Terraform and/or CloudFormation.

• Extensive experience designing, building, and managing CI/CD pipelines, preferable with GitHub Actions.

• Strong scripting and automation skills.

• Hands-on experience implementing and managing modern observability tools (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic).

• A highly autonomous self-starter, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of taking ownership of projects and strategic initiatives from start to finish.

• Demonstrated experience creating high-quality technical documentation for a variety of audiences, including infrastructure diagrams, process runbooks, and developer-facing guides.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.

• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice-to-Haves

• Familiarity with one or more of the application stacks used at Neon One (JavaScript/Typescript, PHP, Java, .NET).

• Experience managing container orchestration platforms, particularly Kubernetes (EKS).

• Direct, hands-on experience with the technical requirements of compliance frameworks like SOC 2 and PCI-DSS.

• Experience with cloud financial management (FinOps) and cost optimization strategies.

• Familiarity with MLOps principles and tools.

• Prior experience working with or a passion for the non-profit sector.

Why Join Neon One?

At Neon One, our values aren’t just words - they’re how we show up every day. We make good happen by putting empathy and passion at the center of our work, using technology to uplift mission-driven organizations. We stand for our customers, acting with care and intention in every decision. We own the solution, rolling up our sleeves to meet challenges head-on, and we grow together, valuing inclusivity, collaboration, and progress over perfection. We also innovate fearlessly, always exploring new ways to support our community and each other.

If you’re energized by purpose-driven work and ready to thrive in a remote, people-first environment, we’d love to connect with you.

Benefits and More

Our people are at their best when they are happy, healthy, and have the resources and support they need.

• Unlimited paid time off

• Comprehensive health plans (medical, dental, vision)

• 401(k) with up to 3.5% company match

• Paid parental leave after one year

• Company-paid life insurance and long-term disability

• Pet insurance

• 11 company holidays

• Paid sick time and a monthly paid volunteer day

• Medical and dependent care flexible spending accounts

• Commuter benefits, identity theft protection

• Fully remote workplace

How We Hire (and How We Use AI):

We use AI tools to support our recruitment process, including helping us organize applications and identify early matches based on role criteria. That said, every rejection decision is made by a human. We encourage candidates to apply authentically and avoid relying solely on AI-generated responses, especially during interviews. We want to get to know you, not ChatGPT.

This opportunity is offered through HighlightTA, the on-demand talent team supporting Neon One’s growth.

Connect with us and learn more:
Neon One on LinkedIn
HighlightTA on LinkedIn