Developer Experience Engineer

Developer Experience Engineer - Contract - Vienna, VA - $65.00 - $71.70/hr.

The final salary or hourly wage, as applicable, paid to each candidate/applicant for this position is ultimately dependent on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate's/applicant's qualifications, skills, and level of experience as well as the geographical location of the position.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Sponsorship not available.

Our client is seeking a Developer Experience Engineer in Vienna, VA.

Role Description

We are seeking a visionary yet hands-on Senior Developer Experience (DevEx) Engineer. You will be a founding individual contributor supporting DevEx initiative. Our mission is to reduce developer cognitive load, accelerate engineering velocity, and deliver an outstanding developer experience.
You'll partner closely with engineering leadership, product teams, and fellow platform engineers to modernize and optimize every aspect of the software development lifecycle from onboarding to deployment. AI tooling expertise is a must, as you will help embed intelligent automation and developer-assist capabilities throughout our workflows. You will also play a key role in renovating and extending our core data platforms for high observability, reliability, and actionable insights.
This role is essentially a senior platform engineer with deep DevEx (Developer Experience) focus plus strong AI-tooling expertise.
They want someone who can build an Internal Developer Platform (IDP), modernize, reduce developer friction, and introduce AI-driven productivity tooling - all while ensuring observability, data workflow modernization, and best practices across Azure.

Developer Experience & Platform Engineering
Define and own the Developer Experience roadmap for the Platform Team, aligned with organizational goals.
Experience with IDP tools such as backstage, cortex etc.
Design, build, and maintain internal developer platforms that simplify and standardize development workflows.
Integrate and champion AI-powered developer tools (AI-assisted code generation, intelligent code review, automated documentation).
Continuously evaluate emerging AI development tools and APIs for workflow integration.
Establish and promote best practices for Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines, local development environments, and cloud-native deployments.
Reduce developer cognitive load by abstracting infrastructure complexity, improving release management, and championing self-service capabilities.
Drive self-service solutions for engineers to provision, test, and deploy safely and autonomously.
Optimize feedback loops in partnership with product teams to enable rapid iteration and higher-quality releases.
Measure and improve DORA/SPACE and developer productivity metrics, using data for continuous improvements.
Drive digital innovation by leveraging new technologies and methodologies to transform core data assets (SQL, NoSQL, and Cloud-based data platforms).
Implement efficient data flows: code data pulls, transformations, and exchanges across internal/external sources.
Work with complex, possibly "noisy" data ensuring data consistency and collaborating with upstream teams.
Define cost-efficient data storage strategies for CI/CD data repositories.
Architect and promote reusable data assets, managing reference data catalogs and surfacing data for end-user consumption via Azure API Apps or modern visualization tools.

Skills & Requirements

8+ years' professional software engineering experience, with 3+ years in platform engineering, developer experience, or DevOps roles.
Track record of delivering developer productivity and platform initiatives at scale.
Deep experience with cloud-native development (Azure DevOps, GitHub Enterprise, Kubernetes), and CI/CD.
Expertise in integrating and using AI-powered development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, OpenAI API, AI-based testing).
Solid knowledge of software delivery metrics (DORA, SPACE) and improvement methods.
Advanced proficiency in at least one programming language (Java, Go, Python, etc.) and modern IaC tools (Terraform).
Experience building/operating new platform/DX functions and influencing technical direction.
Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills; able to bridge infra, product, and engineering concerns.
Extensive Azure expertise: Azure DevOps (ADO), Azure SQL, Azure NoSQL, Azure APIs, Event Hub, Stream Analytics, Storage, Log Analytics.
Working knowledge of ELK stack (Elastic, Logz.io, Splunk), and cloud-based monitoring/logging.
Scripting/automation skills (PowerShell, Python, YAML).
Experience configuring cloud monitoring (Azure Application Insights, Log Analytics/KQL).
AWS experience (EC2, S3, EMR) and cloud data migration.
Experience in multi-team engineering environments with a core focus on developer enablement.
Familiarity with Team Topologies and cognitive load reduction strategies.
Previous work integrating observability, monitoring, and logging in developer-facing systems.
Event-driven architecture and microservices experience.
Hands-on secure software supply chain practices (SBOMs, artifact signing, etc.).
Experience with BI tools and dashboards (Tableau, Business Objects).
Experience with DevOps/CI/CD tooling (Maven, Jenkins, Stash, Ansible, Docker).
Experience using Agile methodologies (Kanban, SCRUM).
8+ yrs software engineering; 3+ yrs DevEx/Platform/DevOps.
Strong Azure cloud experience (ADO, Kubernetes, SQL/NoSQL, Event Hub, Log Analytics).
Terraform + scripting (Python, PowerShell, YAML).
Strong CI/CD, cloud-native engineering, GitHub Enterprise.
AI tooling experience (Copilot, OpenAI API, etc.).

Benefits/Other Compensation

This position is a contract/temporary role where Hays offers you the opportunity to enroll in full medical benefits, dental benefits, vision benefits, 401K and Life Insurance ($20,000 benefit).

Why Hays?

You will be working with a professional recruiter who has intimate knowledge of the industry and market trends. Your Hays recruiter will lead you through a thorough screening process in order to understand your skills, experience, needs, and drivers. You will also get support on resume writing, interview tips, and career planning, so when there's a position you really want, you're fully prepared to get it.

Nervous about an upcoming interview? Unsure how to write a new resume?

Visit the Hays Career Advice section to learn top tips to help you stand out from the crowd when job hunting.

Hays is committed to building a thriving culture of diversity that embraces people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better we serve our candidates, clients, and employees. We are an equal employment opportunity employer, and we comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, genetic information, HIV-positive status, as well as any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. One of Hays' guiding principles is 'do the right thing'.
We also believe that actions speak louder than words.
In that regard, we train our staff on ensuring inclusivity throughout the entire recruitment process and counsel our clients on these principles. If you have any questions about Hays or any of our processes, please contact us.

In accordance with applicable federal, state, and local law protecting qualified individuals with known disabilities, Hays will attempt to reasonably accommodate those individuals unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the company. Any qualified applicant or consultant with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to perform the essential functions of the job should call or text .

Drug testing may be required; please contact a recruiter for more information.

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