Principal DevOps Engineer

Advocus National Title Insurance Company is a title insurance underwriter and settlement service provider. Based in Chicago and formerly known as Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund, Inc. (ATG), our roots go back to 1964. While our name has evolved, our purpose remains the same: To advocate for and protect consumers in one of life’s biggest financial transactions and to support the attorneys and other professionals who guide them. Since 2023, Advocus has been expanding beyond its Midwestern foundation to serve agents and clients in many states. Our priorities are to support our agents, partner closely across every transaction, and protect our insureds long after their closings are complete. Title insurance safeguards property buyers and lenders against financial loss or legal disputes if there are hidden defects in a property's ownership history. It covers pre-existing issues such as forgery, unrecorded liens, unpaid taxes, or missing heirs. [106 words without italicized explanatory statement.

Job Profile:

Principal DevOps Engineer

Job Description Summary:

We are committed to providing a competitive and equitable total rewards package. The compensation for this role is designed to attract, retain, and motivate top talent.

The expected base salary range for this position is $160,000 to $180,000 annually.

Job Description:

About the role Advocus is hiring a Principal DevOps Engineer to set the technical direction for how we build, ship, and run software. Reporting to the CTO, you’ll own our delivery and infrastructure foundations, raise the reliability bar, and influence teams through expertise rather than org chart, partnering with engineering, architecture, and security. It’s a foundational role at a pivotal time: you’ll lead the migration of legacy Windows and SQL workloads from on-prem to AWS, and the move to modern, automated, in-house product platforms. Our environment

• Cloud: AWS (EC2, RDS/SQL Server, EKS)
• Cloudflare: Workers, WAF
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions
• IaC and scripting: Terraform, CloudFormation, Bash, PowerShell
• Containers: Docker, Kubernetes, Helm
• Observability: Datadog, OpenObserve
• Operating systems: Windows, Linux

Equivalent tools are welcome. We care more about depth and judgment than brand names. What you’ll do

• Set and drive DevOps strategy across automation, observability, and delivery, and track progress with metrics
• Architect and evolve multi-service, multi-environment CI/CD pipelines
• Own our IaC frameworks and the standards teams build on
• Design secure, resilient AWS architectures, including DR and capacity planning
• Establish SLIs, SLOs, error budgets, and incident response practices with engineering partners
• Build security and cost efficiency into the platform by default (secrets management, encryption standards, policy-as-code)
• Work with developers, QA, security, and product to streamline delivery
• Mentor engineers through design and code reviews, and lead modernization initiatives

What success looks like

• 30 days: Assess current pipelines and platform, and publish a prioritized roadmap
• 6 months: Automated deployment pipelines for tier-1 workloads, with a plan for the rest
• 12 months: HA/DR strategy documented and tested across all services, with defined RPO/RTO by tier and MTTR of 1 hour or less on mission-critical services

What we’re looking for

• 10+ years in DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering (or equivalent depth), with hands-on experience designing and operating production platforms at scale
• A track record of driving standards and adoption across teams you didn’t manage
• Strong AWS architecture experience
• Experience modernizing or migrating Windows and SQL Server workloads from on-prem to AWS
• Experience administering both Windows and Linux environments
• Extensive CI/CD experience (GitHub Actions or comparable)
• Strong IaC skills (Terraform, CloudFormation, or CDK)
• Proficiency in Python, Bash, or PowerShell (Go a plus)
• Hands-on Docker and Kubernetes experience (EKS and Helm preferred)
• Solid grounding in networking, security, and distributed systems
• Experience with Datadog, OpenObserve, or similar observability tools

Preferred

• NATS and JetStream messaging
• Apache Doris or similar large-scale analytical databases
• Amazon AppStream 2.0
• Cloudflare (Workers, WAF)
• SRE practices such as error budgets and chaos engineering
• FinOps or cloud cost optimization
• Compliance or audit support experience
• LLMOps/MLOps: experience running ML or LLM workloads in production

Compensation and Benefits:

• Competitive base salary plus performance-based bonuses.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance options.
• Retirement plan with employer matching.
• Paid time off (PTO) and holiday pay.
• Continuing education and professional development opportunities.

Why Join Advocus This is a unique opportunity to step into a foundational leadership role at a transformative moment for our organization. You will guide the buildout of our internal platforms, create a high-ownership engineering culture, and deliver mission-critical software for our clients and operations. If you are passionate about transforming legacy environments into modernproduct platforms, this role offers the chance to lead that journey.

Advocus is an Equal Opportunity Employer that welcomes and encourages all applicants to apply regardless of age, race, sex, religion, color, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital or parental status, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy or other reason protected by law.

Additional Job Description Summary:

Advocus National Title Insurance Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer that welcomes and encourages all applicants to apply regardless of age, race, sex, religion, color, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital or parental status, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy or other reason protected by law.

The company offers a comprehensive benefits program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; critical care insurance; personal accidental insurance; commuter benefits; pet insurance; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program); and other supplemental benefits (e.g. legal planning assistance; identity theft protection; pet insurance; wellness resources).

Please click this link to learn more about our benefit offerings for Washington State: Benefit Offerings for Washington State