Pennsylvania State University
DevSecOps Department Head
🇺🇸 San Diego, CA
🕑 Full-Time
💰 $109K - $220K
💻 Project Management
🗓️ October 20th, 2025
CCSP
CI/CD
CISSP
Edtech.com's Summary
The Pennsylvania State University is hiring a DevSecOps Department Head to lead the DevSecOps Department within the Joint Mission Integration and Experimentation Division of the Applied Research Laboratory. The role involves developing and executing strategic plans, managing research engineers and technicians, coordinating cross-office initiatives, and fostering partnerships with government, academia, and industry to support warfighter capabilities development.
Highlights
- Lead and manage research engineers and technicians in the DevSecOps Department.
- Develop and execute a department strategic plan leveraging ARL’s Digital Engineering resources.
- Build and maintain partnerships with sponsors and collaborators from government, academia, and industry.
- Coordinate lab-wide efforts to fulfill unique mission sets and agile sponsor requirements.
- Present department overviews, proposals, and technical briefings at internal and external events.
- Required skills include leadership in personnel and financial management, securing DoD/IC infrastructure and applications, containerized environments, Linux system administration, cloud computing, and maintaining TS/SCI clearance.
- Preferred skills include security certifications (e.g., CISSP, Security+), CI/CD pipeline integration, Atlassian products experience, data engineering, and active TS/SCI clearance.
- Must hold a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Science with varying years of relevant experience depending on the professional level.
- Salary range is $109,300 to $219,600, with a comprehensive benefits package including medical, retirement, paid time off, and a 75% tuition discount.
- Position requires US citizenship and successful completion of background checks, pre-employment drug screen, and ability to obtain government security clearance.
DevSecOps Department Head Full Description
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:
- CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.
- CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, please login to Workday to complete the student application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.
- If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click "Apply" and complete the application process for external applicants.
Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants.
POSITION SPECIFICS
We are seeking a highly motivated Department Head to lead the DevSecOps Department within the Joint Mission Integration and Experimentation Division (JMIE) of the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Penn State. JMIE specializes in rapid development of warfighter capabilities in an aggregated and integrated multidomain environment. The Department Head will report directly to the JMIE Division Head and will be responsible for managing the departments research engineers and technicians. This position will be filled as a Research and Development Engineer or a non-tenure Research Faculty and will be located in San Diego, CA.
ARL is an authorized DoD SkillBridge partner and welcomes all transitioning military members to apply.
You will:
- Develop and execute a Department strategic plan harnessing and enabling ARL's Digital Engineering resources
- Develop and manage partnerships and relationships with sponsors and collaborators in government, academia, and industry
- Building a partnership with ARL's Enterprise Cyber organization
- Coordinate across Offices for lab wide fulfillment of unique mission sets and agile sponsor requirements
- Present Department and program overviews, proposals, and technical briefings at internal and external events
- Prepare and review proposals, technical reports, status reports, and other programmatic and administrative documents
- Coordinate with sponsors and supervised organizational logistics and team management to identify risks, issues, requirements, and design solutions for project-level activity on a day to day basis
- Lead a technically strong, dynamic, and entrepreneurial group of personnel
- Create and manage a world-class and diverse engineering workforce
- Department tasking and operational/technical skills in one or more specific components including: Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, Continuous Deployment, Continuous Security, and Data Engineering
Required skills/experience areas include:
- Leadership in personnel and financial management
- Securing infrastructure and applications in the DoD/IC Community
- Containerized environments
- Implementation of security monitoring, logging, and alerting throughout a system
- Administration of Linux-based systems
- Adept understanding of cloud-computing; virtualization technologies, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS delivery models
- Obtain and maintain a TS/SCI clearance.
Preferred skills/experience areas include:
- Security-related certifications (CISSP, CSSLP, CCSP, Security+, etc.)
- Direct experience with upgrades, migrations, and integration of developmental and tactical platform environments and CI/CD pipelines
- Participation in security-related roles within the software development lifecycle
- Work with Atlassian products (JIRA, Bitbucket, Confluence)
- Experience ensuring reliable data collection; monitoring and auditing integrity of data throughout its lifecycle
- Experience employing algorithms to model and estimate data to handle missing/corrupt values; time series modeling and prediction
- Data technologies and data engineering - distributed systems, MQTT, ETL with databases with large-scale, complex datasets; data structures and organization for fast, high throughput processing
- Active TS/SCI Clearance
This position will be located fully on site and located in San Diego, CA.
MINIMUM EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE & REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONSIf filled as Research and Development Engineer - Principal Professional, this position
requires:Bachelor's Degree - Engineering or Science19+ years of relevant experienceRequired Certifications:NoneIf filled as Research and Development Engineer - Advanced Professional, this position requires:Bachelor's Degree - Engineering or Science5+ years of relevant experienceRequired Certifications:NoneIf filled as Research and Development Engineer - Senior Professional, this position requires:Bachelor's Degree - Engineering or Science14+ years of relevant experienceRequired Certifications:None
ARL's purpose is to research and develop innovative solutions to challenging scientific, engineering, and technology problems in support of the Navy, the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Intel Community (IC).
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION on ARL, visit our web site at www.arl.psu.edu.
BACKGROUND CHECKS/CLEARANCESEmployment with the University will require successful completion of background check(s) in accordance with University policies.
All positions at ARL require candidates to possess the ability to obtain a government security clearance; you will be notified during the interview process if this position is subject to a government background investigation. You must be a U.S. citizen to apply. Employment with the ARL will require successful completion of a pre-employment drug screen.
SALARY & BENEFITSThe salary range for this position, including all possible grades, is $109,300.00 - $219,600.00.**THE PROPOSED SALARY RANGE MAY BE IMPACTED BY GEOGRAPHIC DIFFERENTIAL**
Salary Structure - Information on Penn State's salary structure
Penn State provides a competitive benefits package for full-time employees designed to support both personal and professional well-being. In addition to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, employees enjoy robust retirement plans and substantial paid time off which includes holidays, vacation and sick time. One of the standout benefits is the generous 75% tuition discount, available to employees as well as eligible spouses and children. For more detailed information, please visit our Benefits Page.
CAMPUS SECURITY CRIME STATISTICS
Pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act and the Pennsylvania Act of 1988, Penn State publishes a combined Annual Security and Annual Fire Safety Report (ASR). The ASR includes crime statistics and institutional policies concerning campus security, such as those concerning alcohol and drug use, crime prevention, the reporting of crimes, sexual assault, and other matters. The ASR is available for review here.
EEO IS THE LAW
Penn State is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. If you are unable to use our online application process due to an impairment or disability, please contact 814-865-1473.
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