Manager, DevOps - Technology Operations

GTS DevOps Engineering Manager American Chemical Society About ACS

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a globally recognized leader in disseminating scientific information. Our extensive publication division produces over 80 scholarly journals, including the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society, and the widely read weekly magazine, Chemical & Engineering News. ACS is committed to advancing the field of chemistry through national meetings, regional conferences, and the comprehensive Chemical Abstracts Service.

The DevOps Engineering Manager is a key leadership role supporting the delivery, reliability, and evolution of DevOps capabilities across the Publications Technology division. This manager will lead a global team of engineers, working closely with application development teams, Cloud Operations, Enterprise Architecture, and Technical Operations to ensure seamless and scalable software delivery and operations. The central focus of this role is building robust pipelines and platforms with integrated standards and quality gates that empower autonomous development teams, enabling them to deliver, operate, and evolve their applications independently with speed, safety, and confidence.

This position follows a hybrid work model, requiring employees to work on-site two days per week at one of our campuses located in Columbus, OH or Washington, DC. The remaining three days per week may be worked remotely. Candidates must reside within a commutable distance of one of these locations or be willing to relocate to meet this requirement.

General Responsibilities / Duties Set DevOps Strategy

– Define and drive the DevOps vision, roadmap, and adoption of modern practices across engineering teams.

Support Development Teams –

Partner with application teams and service vendors to implement CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and release automation in support of their development and delivery goals. The ideal candidate is comfortable rolling up their sleeves and contributing directly to engineering efforts to ensure delivery excellence and platform reliability.

Design and Evolve an Internal Developer Platform (IDP)

– Lead the design and implementation of an IDP that enables development teams with self-service capabilities, standardized tooling, and reusable infrastructure components.

Maintain Toolchain and Infrastructure

– Oversee and improve the DevOps toolchain, ensuring robust, secure, and scalable infrastructure to support all stages of the software development lifecycle.

Foster Continuous Improvement

– Evaluate and adapt to emerging DevOps and platform engineering trends to modernize processes and tools, where sensible and impactful.

Develop and Mentor Team

– Provide coaching, feedback, and career growth opportunities to DevOps engineers; promote a culture of collaboration and technical excellence.

Collaborate with Leadership

– Partner with technical leads, architects, and senior leadership to align DevOps initiatives with strategic objectives and operational goals.

Ensure Operational Excellence

– Monitor system health, support incident resolution, and drive initiatives that improve system reliability, deployment efficiency, and developer experience.

Enforce Governance and Standards

– Ensure compliance with security, audit, and operational standards in DevOps practices and infrastructure provisioning.

Education/Experience Required Knowledge and Skills:

- A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field—or equivalent practical experience. - 7+ years of experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, or Infrastructure Automation roles. - 2+ years of experience managing or leading engineering teams in a DevOps or cloud infrastructure context.

- Demonstrated success implementing and scaling DevOps practices and platforms across multiple teams or product lines.

Competencies/Technologies

- Proficiency with CI/CD platforms (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins), infrastructure as code tools (Terraform, CloudFormation), and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).

- Experience implementing change management and release governance processes in CI/CD workflows.

- Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) including security, networking, and cost management.

- Experience designing, building, and evolving an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) to enable self-service infrastructure and deployment capabilities.

- Familiarity with scripting languages (Bash, Python, ksh, etc.) and systems administration in Linux environments.

- Knowledge of observability practices and tools (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, ELK, or equivalent).

- Strong understanding of software development practices, version control systems (e.g., Git), and automated testing integration.

- Demonstrated knowledge of Agile methodologies; experience working within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is strongly preferred.

- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and influence cross-functional decision-making.

- Excellent leadership, mentoring, and collaboration.

- Experience in scientific publishing or data-driven applications is a plus.

What We Offer

- Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package.

- Opportunity to lead DevOps transformation initiatives using modern technologies.

- Supportive and collaborative environment with a strong engineering culture.

- Clear path for career growth, leadership development, and continuous learning.

- Work that directly supports the advancement of science and global research.

This role can be based in our Washington, D.C. or Colombus, OH offices. A reasonable rate of compensation for this position is

- For DC, between $120,000-160,000 per year.

- For OH, between $110,000-140,000 per year.

ACS currently provides the following benefits for this position: paid vacation leave, paid sick leave, paid holidays, health insurance, flexible spending account or health care savings account, dental insurance, life insurance, vision insurance, retirement benefits, short- and long-term disability, and 4-week work from anywhere; each benefit is subject to the terms of the applicable program. Additional benefits may apply based on skills, experience, and location.

Any actual offer of employment, reflecting the total compensation package and benefits, will be made in the sole discretion of ACS. ACS reserves the right to amend or modify its employment benefits and compensation structure at any time.