Sr DevOps Engineer
Be part of a growing, successful company in an exciting and challenging field. Border States is 100% employee-owned, which means you’re empowered to make decisions, find solutions and receive rewards for your hard work.
This position will be located in: Fargo, ND
Application Deadline: April 16, 2026
Please note that the position may be filled before or after the listed application deadline. Applications will only be accepted while the posting remains active.
Job Summary
The Senior DevOps Engineer is a hands-on technical leader responsible for building and maintaining scalable, secure, and highly available infrastructure and delivery pipelines across cloud environments. This role drives automation, observability, and reliability engineering practices to support business-critical applications and microservices. Working closely with development, security, and operations teams, the Senior DevOps Engineer leads initiatives to streamline deployment processes, optimize system performance, and implement proactive monitoring and incident response strategies. The ideal candidate has deep experience in infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD tooling, cloud platforms (particularly Azure), and a strong commitment to continuous improvement, mentorship, and operational excellence. While not fully strategic, the role significantly influences technical decision-making, platform stability, and the team’s DevOps maturity.
Responsibilities
Essential Functions
- Implements and manages complex CI/CD pipelines for business-critical applications and microservices, ensuring reliability, traceability, and fast delivery across staging and production environments.
- Supports DevSecOps practices by integrating security and compliance checks into pipelines and automation workflows, contributing to organization-wide standards.
- Designs and implements scalable cloud solutions using Azure services (AKS, Key Vault, Storage Accounts, etc.) and collaborating with cross-functional teams to integrate new technologies.
- Leads automation initiatives for infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, and monitoring using tools like Terraform, Helm/Kustomize, and scripting (bash, Python, PowerShell).
- Establishes and manages observability systems including logging, telemetry, and alerting to ensure platform health and support root cause analysis.
- Acts as technical lead during high-impact incidents, driving response efforts, performing post-mortems, and leading remediation workstreams.
- Contributes to architecture reviews, recommending secure and cost-efficient solutions and participating in technical decision-making.
- Authors and maintains technical documentation, including runbooks, standards, disaster recovery plans, and best practices.
- Mentors DevOps engineers and collaborates with development teams, fostering a culture of ownership, learning, and operational excellence.
- Monitors cloud usage and performance, identifying optimization opportunities to reduce cost and improve efficiency.
- Supports compliance and security practices, collaborating with InfoSec to meet organizational and regulatory requirements.
- Creates and maintains Dockerfiles and Azure pipelines for deployments, security scans, and automation tasks in support of development teams.
- Coordinates with developers to improve release processes, ensuring reliable, repeatable software delivery.
Non-essential Functions
- Ensures business continuity and disaster recovery documentation remains up to date as it relates to the functional area(s).
- Responds to IT Helpdesk incidents where appropriate, and performs off-hours support, as necessary.
- Provides feedback to management to ensure project workload is appropriate across the team.
- Performs other duties as assigned by manager or designate.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related STEM field, or equivalent hands-on experience required. Master’s preferred.
- 7+ years of progressive experience in DevOps, site reliability engineering, or related technical roles, with proven leadership in large-scale cloud environments.
- Expert proficiency with Linux administration, kernel tuning, and advanced shell scripting.
- Extensive hands-on experience with Azure cloud platform, including advanced services (AKS, Key Vault, Managed Identities), cloud networking, and security controls.
- Advanced automation skills using Terraform, Helm/Kustomize, GitHub Actions/Azure DevOps, and container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Docker).
- Robust understanding of modern application architectures, including microservices, serverless, and event-driven designs.
- Experience designing, securing, and scaling distributed systems, with a track record of implementing high-availability and disaster recovery strategies.
- Strong programming capabilities in at least one major language (Python, Go, Ruby, Node.js, or Java preferred).
- Deep knowledge of CI/CD tools, artifact management, monitoring suites (Prometheus, Grafana, Elasticsearch/Opensearch), and cloud cost management platforms.
- Experience leading technical teams, managing project deliverables, and influencing organizational technical direction.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and advisory skills, with ability to interface effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
- Certifications in Azure, Kubernetes, or security disciplines (e.g., AZ-400, CKA, CISSP), preferred.
- Familiarity with SAP ecosystem (ECC, S4HANA, Commerce Cloud) or large-scale ERP integrations, preferred.
- Track record of driving organizational change, optimizing engineering workflows, and delivering complex cloud migration projects, preferred.
Skills and Abilities
- Strategic thinker with passion for operational excellence and continuous improvement.
- Demonstrated ability to identify risks, troubleshoot rapidly, and deliver innovative solutions under pressure.
- Commitment to knowledge sharing, team development, and technology advocacy.
- Self-motivated, proactive, and adaptable to evolving business and technology landscapes.
Physical Requirements
Frequency at which you would carry/lift in a typical day:
Occasionally 0 – 33% Frequently 34 – 66% Continuously: 67 – 100%
- Lift from Waist:
- < than 10 lbs. - Not at all
- 10 to 25 lbs. - Not at all
- 26 to 50 lbs. - Not at all
- 51 to 75 lbs. - Not at all
- 75 to 100 lbs. - Not at all
- 100+ lbs. - Not at all
- Lift from Floor:
- < than 10 lbs. - Frequently
- 10 to 25 lbs. - Occasionally
- 26 to 50 lbs. - Occasionally
- 51 to 75 lbs. - Not at all
- 75 to 100 lbs. - Not at all
- 100+ lbs. - Not at all
- Carried for Distance:
- < than 10 lbs. - Not at all
- 10 to 25 lbs. - Not at all
- 26 to 50 lbs. - Not at all
- 51 to 75 lbs. - Not at all
- 75 to 100 lbs. - Not at all
- 100+ lbs. - Not at all
Physical Activity
Frequency at which you would do the following in a typical day:
- Sitting (a continuous period of being seated) - Continuously
- Standing (for sustained periods of time) - Frequently
- Walking (moving about on foot to accomplish tasks) - Frequently
- Bending/stooping (downward and forward) - Occasionally
- Crawling (moving about on hands and knees or hands and feet) - Not at all
- Climbing/Walking Stairs (ascending or descending) - Occasionally
- Reaching (extending arms in any direction) - Frequently
- Crouching/squatting (bending the body downward and forward by bending leg and spine) - Occasionally
- Kneeling (bending legs at knee to come to rest on knee(s)) - Occasionally
- Balancing (maintaining body equilibrium to prevent falling) - Occasionally
- Repetitive motion (substantial movement (motions) or the wrists, hands, and/or fingers) - Continuously
- Pivoting (movement in any direction with one foot, keeping the other in contact with the floor) - Occasionally
- Pushing/Pulling (using upper extremities to press against or draw or tug) - Occasionally
- Grasping (Applying pressure to an object with the fingers and palm) - Continuously
- Fingering (picking, pinching, typing; working with primarily fingers and not whole hand) - Continuously
- Talking (expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word) - Frequently
- Driving (the control and operation of a motor vehicle) - Occasionally
- Desk work (work usually performed at a desk) - Continuously
- Use of a computer - Continuously
- Use of a telephone - Occasionally
- Hearing (Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels) - Frequently
- Exposure (to adverse weather & temperature conditions) - Not at all
- Travel (travel needed to perform job duties) - Occasionally
Additional Information
This job description is a summary of the job duties and responsibilities and is not intended to cover all possible job duties and is subject to change at the employer’s discretion. Employees must be able to perform the essential job duties and satisfy job requirements either with or without a reasonable accommodation.
Our History
Border States is a leader in the electrical supply distribution industry with approximately 130 locations in 31 states. Our employee-owners are second to none in delivering top-notch customer service and in demonstrating extra-ordinary people skills. We are one of the largest independent electrical distributors in the United States providing products and services to the construction, industrial and utility industries. Border States has a competitive benefit package and is a 100 percent employee-owned company. Employee-ownership is a significant part of our culture and our success stems from the dedication of our employee-owners. We practice open-book management and our employee-owners are empowered with clearly defined levels of authority to be innovative and decisive, allowing us to respond quickly to the needs of customers. Employee-owners understand their roles in the success of the company and care about customers’ needs, which drives our focus on adding value to everything we do. We recognize that not all customers are the same and each has specific requirements. Our employee-owners understand these diverse needs and have the commitment, resourcefulness and flexibility to outperform all others.
Values
As a Border States employee-owner, you’re responsible for living our mission, service philosophy and service standards.
Our Purpose
We believe unstoppable businesses shouldn't go it alone. We are owners - of relationships, of outcomes, of every moment these unstoppable businesses need to deliver.
Service Philosophy
We earn customer loyalty and confidence by caring about their needs and adding value to everything we do.
Service Standards
Border States employee-owners are competent, accurate, responsive, and engaged .
Your career
Join an experienced team at one of the largest electrical distributors in the United States. What are you waiting for?
Border States has a competitive benefits package which includes but is not limited to:
Health, Dental and Vision Benefits
Accident, Critical Illness, Hospital Indemnity
FSA & HSA
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
Disability Benefits
401(k) Retirement Plan
Life Insurance
Employee Assistance Program
Paid Holidays
Paid Volunteer Time
Personal Leave time and more!
Border States provides bonuses to their employee-owners upon the achievement of branch and company goals.
Equal Opportunity For All
It’s not just the law. It’s something we’ve believed in since our founding. We value the diversity of all of our employee-owners and will always be an equal opportunity employer.
Drug Free/Smoke Free workplace
Employment may be contingent on the offered candidate successfully passing one or more of the following pre-employment screenings:
- Criminal background check (required for all positions)
- Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) check (required for positions involving driving)
- Drug testing
The MVR check and drug testing vary by role and will be communicated to the offered candidate during the onboarding process and as applicable.
Nearest Major Market: Fargo