Senior DevOps Engineer

Job Description

Holland America Line has been exploring the world since 1873. Our ships offer innovative features and enriching experiences focused on destination exploration and personalized travel, inviting guests to savor the journey.

The Senior Engineer, DevOps is responsible for driving the company's DevOps and platform engineering implementation, transforming infrastructure and application delivery from manual, one-off processes into automated, repeatable, and scalable practices. The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer with deep expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and immutable infrastructure patterns. This role sits within the Cloud and DevOps Platforms function in Infrastructure and Operations and leads a small team (3-5 FTEs and/or contract resources) that builds the automation, tooling, and standards supporting the company's commercial, business, and fleet application environments, including automated provisioning on the virtualization and container platform and its native Kubernetes capabilities. The platform team builds and maintains the paved road that application teams drive on: it owns CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure such as code, cloud automation, deployment tooling, and the standards and guardrails application teams build on top of. Application teams retain ownership of application code and application-level production support, and a managed services partner operates the platform against defined standards. The Senior Engineer champions DevSecOps and shift-left practices, embedding security and compliance validation into automated pipelines, and fosters shared ownership across development, operations, and security teams in place of siloed, manually maintained systems. This role will be challenged with competing priorities and deadlines and will be required to ensure all recommendations are in compliance with corporate policies and procedures, all while living out the company's culture essentials.

Here’s a summary of what Holland America Line is looking for. Is this you?

Responsibilities:

• Designs, builds, and implements the target DevOps operating model. Delivers Infrastructure as Code and automated provisioning so environments are version-controlled, repeatable, and disposable, and establishes centralized secrets management, configuration management standards, and policy-as-code guardrails for security, cost, and compliance. Replaces manual “ClickOps” processes and one-off solutions with standardized deployment pipelines, golden-path reference templates, and defined lifecycle management, including upgrade paths, version tracking, and integration into the broader delivery ecosystem. Partners with business owners, IT product managers/business analysts, and infrastructure teams to scope and prioritize automation work.

• Leads and manages a small team (3-5 FTEs and/or contract resources) responsible for DevOps and platform engineering. Leadership of the team includes setting clear expectations, offering constructive feedback, and nurturing professional growth, including building team skills in Linux, containers, automation, and IaC tooling. Monitoring team performance, resolving conflicts, and fostering cross-departmental collaboration are crucial for aligning project priorities with organizational goals. Promotes continuous improvement and a shared-responsibility culture between development and operations to drive successful project execution.

• Builds and operates CI/CD pipelines and platform automation to provide premium service to our customers. Automates provisioning, deployment, and scaling on the virtualization and container platform, including software-defined networking, load balancing, and the native Kubernetes/container stack. Establishes monitoring, alerting, and performance optimization frameworks, including SLO/SLI-based reliability measurement and self-healing and high-availability patterns, and produces the consistent, structured operational data that AIOps and AI-driven insights depend on. Performs proof-of-concepts for new business and technical use cases and serves as the L3 escalation point for platform and infrastructure issues, working with internal engineers and the managed services partner to permanently resolve integration and performance issues.

• Implements DevSecOps and shift-left practices: integrates security and compliance checks early in the development lifecycle and automates continuous validation of security policies within delivery pipelines. Defines security policies and compliance measures in partnership with the Global Security team. Develops comprehensive error handling, disaster recovery, and high-availability strategies within a robust security and compliance framework. Represents DevOps on internal Architectural Review Boards and participates in code, configuration, and design reviews to ensure alignment with architectural and security standards.

• Documents automation, pipelines, and platform processes in a manner that is standardized across Holland America IT, ensuring proper knowledge transfer so systems are never handed over without documentation. Provides training, guidance, and support to engineering and operations teams on DevOps best practices, IaC, and containerization to reduce technical debt across the environment.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Scope: This role assumes responsibility in daily decision-making and overseeing team management within the scope of their role. They will have ownership of the DevOps toolchain, automation frameworks, and delivery pipelines, with responsibility for technical system enhancements and support in partnership with internal and external stakeholders. Ownership is scoped to the platform layer: application code, feature development, and application-level production support remain with application teams, and day-to-day operations are delivered by a managed services partner working against the standards this role defines. The ideal candidate will drive the DevOps strategy to implementation, own multiple work streams, perform data-driven and technical analysis, and contribute toward leadership's innovation and strategy development. Project work is broad in scope and requires creativity, flexibility, analytical abilities, structured thinking, and strong written and oral communication skills. The Senior Engineer is responsible for ensuring projects are delivered on-time and comply with various technical and security standards.

• Problem Solving: This role is responsible for automating and standardizing a highly complex IT landscape across fleet and land-based technologies. The role requires an above average competency in gathering and analyzing multiple data sources, identifying root causes rather than applying manual fixes, and productive collaboration with others to deliver automated, repeatable solutions to a wide range of problems.

• Impact: This role makes decisions to help ensure daily activities proceed smoothly and directly advances the company's infrastructure modernization strategy, reducing technical debt, operational overhead, and security risk. Decisions have short term consequences and long-term value.

• Leadership: This role leads a team of 3-5 FTEs and/or contract resources.

Essential/Minimal Qualifications:

• Minimum Experience (if preferred but not required, list as such):

• Minimum of 5 years of hands-on experience in DevOps, platform engineering, site reliability, or infrastructure automation roles

• Prior experience leading or mentoring a small technical team is preferred but not required

Essential Experience Required:

• Minimum 5 years in a corporate technology environment

• Demonstrated hands-on experience building and operating CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code in production environments

• Strong Linux and container/Kubernetes experience

• Experience with public cloud platforms; Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) experience highly desirable

• Experience with VMware platforms and their container/Kubernetes capabilities highly desirable

• Experience implementing DevSecOps practices and automated compliance/security validation

• Strong focus on Operational Excellence

• Experience defining standards for and working alongside a managed services partner highly desirable

• 5+ years in the cruise line or hospitality industry is highly desirable

Travel: No or very little travel likely

Work Conditions: Work primarily in a climate-controlled environment with minimal safety/health hazard potential.

Physical Demands:. Must be able to remain in a stationary position at a desk and/or computer for extended periods of time.

This position is classified as “Hybrid.” As a Hybrid role, it requires employees to work from a designated Holland office Monday through Thursday each week. Employees may work from their homes on Fridays.

Holland provides comprehensive and innovative benefits to meet your needs, including:

What You Can Expect

• Cruise and Travel Privileges for You and Your Family
• Health Benefits
• 401(k)
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Training & Professional Development
• Tuition & Professional Certification Reimbursement
• Base Salary Range: $124,600 to $168,200. The range is applicable for the labor market where the role is intended to be hired. Final base salary is directly related to each candidate’s qualifications and experience uniquely.

Our Culture…Stronger Together

Our highest responsibility and top priority is compliance, environmental protection and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, the people in the communities we touch and serve, and our shipboard and shoreside employees. Please visit our site to learn more about our Culture Essentials, Corporate Vision Statement and our Core Values at:

Holland America is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Holland America will provide reasonable accommodations with the application process, upon your request, as required to comply with applicable laws. If you have a disability and require assistance in this application process, please contact [email protected]

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