DevOps Engineer Terraform Expert

Location: Des Moines, Iowa
Work Arrangement: Hybrid
Job Type: Contract
Interview Mode: Web Cam Interview Only
Shift: EST

Position Overview

The Iowa Department of Management Division of IT is seeking a highly experienced DevOps Engineer with deep expertise in Terraform and AWS cloud services. This role supports the modernization of mission-critical systems, including transformation efforts for workforce technology platforms within the State of Iowa.

This position is designed for a senior-level DevOps professional with extensive hands-on experience in Terraform, Amazon EKS, and cloud-native architecture. Candidates must have a strong background in infrastructure as code (IaC), container orchestration, CI/CD automation, and AWS cloud engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain AWS infrastructure using Terraform and TypeScript
• Manage and optimize AWS services including EC2, EKS, ECR, S3, Cognito, Lambda, RDS, IAM, CloudFront, and NLB
• Architect, implement, and maintain Istio service mesh within EKS clusters
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitHub, GitHub Actions, or similar tools
• Implement Helm charts to manage Kubernetes deployments
• Build and maintain Docker containerized microservices environments
• Establish monitoring and telemetry using tools such as CloudWatch, FluentBit, and Dynatrace
• Perform infrastructure unit and integration testing to ensure IaC reliability
• Implement AWS Well-Architected best practices
• Apply networking concepts including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, and SSL/TLS
• Enforce cloud security best practices and compliance controls
• Provide technical leadership and collaborate closely with development teams
• Support Agile development processes

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of DevOps or cloud engineering experience
• 4+ years of hands-on Terraform development using TypeScript
• 8+ years of AWS services development and management, with strong focus on Amazon EKS
• 4+ years of service mesh experience (Istio within EKS environments)
• 6+ years working with Docker containers and microservices frameworks
• 6+ years of Helm chart experience
• 6+ years of scripting experience (TypeScript, Python)
• 8+ years building CI/CD pipelines
• 4+ years applying AWS Well-Architected Framework principles
• 8+ years of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, SSL/TLS)
• 6+ years implementing AWS security best practices
• 8+ years of configuration management and orchestration tools
• Strong communication and collaboration skills

Highly Desired

• AWS Certifications (Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or similar)
• Experience working in public sector environments
• Experience on large-scale modernization initiatives
• Agile methodology experience