Senior DevOps Build Engineer at Firestorm in San Diego, CA

Job description

Who We Are At Firestorm, we are building the future of expeditionary defense manufacturing and autonomous systems. Modern conflict has exposed a fundamental problem: the systems needed most by operators are often too expensive, too slow to produce, and too difficult to sustain at scale. Firestorm exists to change that. We develop mission-adaptable aerial systems and deployable manufacturing infrastructure designed to put capability directly into the hands of the warfighter. From modular unmanned aircraft to xCell -- our deployable microfactory -- our goal is to make defense systems rapidly deployable, adaptable, and producible at the point of need. We are looking for builders, operators, and problem-solvers who want to work on meaningful technology with real-world impact. About the Role Firestorm Labs is seeking an experience Senior DevOps Build Engineer to join our growing team in San Diego. The DevOps Build Engineer owns the build and release engineering function that turns source code into secure, reproducible, deployable artifacts across our defense and government contract programs. This role designs and maintains CI/CD pipelines, build automation, and artifact management systems, and partners closely with development teams to deliver fast, reliable, and auditable builds. This position sits at the intersection of software engineering and platform operations, with a focus on developer experience, build performance, and release integrity. The DevOps Build Engineer will standardize how software is compiled, packaged, versioned, and promoted across unclassified and controlled unclassified environments, and will help bake security and compliance checks directly into the build process. What You’ll Do Design, build, and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins) that compile, test, package, and publish software across multiple programs. Own build automation and release engineering end to end — reproducible builds, semantic versioning, dependency management, and promotion across environments. Manage artifact repositories and container registries (Artifactory, Nexus, ECR/ACR), including retention, access control, and provenance. Develop and maintain build tooling and scripts (Bash, Python, Make, Bazel, or Gradle) to standardize and accelerate builds across teams. Optimize build performance through caching, parallelization, and incremental build strategies to reduce cycle time and cost. Integrate automated security and quality gates into pipelines (SAST, SCA, dependency scanning, SBOM generation) and surface actionable results to developers. Build and maintain container images and base image pipelines, keeping them patched, hardened, and compliant. Automate infrastructure and build-environment provisioning using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform). Partner with development, security, and compliance teams to deliver self-service tooling and generate audit and compliance evidence from the pipeline. Maintain documentation, runbooks, and standards for build and release processes across the organization. Minimum Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent hands-on experience. 8+ years of experience in build/release engineering, DevOps, or software infrastructure roles. Hands-on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with tools such as GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins. Strong scripting and automation skills in Python and Bash. Experience with artifact and dependency management (Artifactory, Nexus, or equivalent) and container registries. Proficiency with Git-based version control and branching/release workflows. Working knowledge of containerization (Docker) Experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS or Azure). U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance Preferred Qualifications DevSecOps experience — integrating SAST/DAST/SCA scanning, software supply chain security, SBOM generation, a