Innovation and Automation Lead

At Accenture Federal Services, nothing matters more than helping the US federal government make the nation stronger and safer and life better for people. Our 13,000+ people are united in a shared purpose to pursue the limitless potential of technology and ingenuity for clients across defense, national security, public safety, civilian, and military health organizations. Join Accenture Federal Services, a technology company within global Accenture. Recognized as a Glassdoor Top 100 Best Place to Work, we offer a collaborative and caring community where you feel like you belong and are empowered to grow, learn and thrive through hands-on experience, certifications, industry training and more. Join us to drive positive, lasting change that moves missions and the government forward! As the Automation Lead, you will be at the heart of driving efficiency and innovation across a data platform. You will lead a specialized team responsible for building the core automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and reusable patterns that all other engineering teams will leverage. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will not only set the technical strategy for automation but also contribute directly to the development of foundational tools. Your mission is to eliminate manual toil, enforce quality, and accelerate the delivery of mission-critical data capabilities. Responsibilities: Lead, mentor, and manage a team of automation engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence. Design, build, and maintain robust, scalable CI/CD pipelines for data engineering, software, and MLOps workflows. Develop and own the strategy for Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), creating and managing a library of reusable Terraform modules for consistent environment provisioning. Architect and implement automated solutions for testing, monitoring, and alerting to ensure the reliability of our data platforms and pipelines. Champion automation best practices across all engineering teams, providing guidance and developing templates to ensure adoption. Collaborate closely with Data Engineering, Data Products, and AI/ML teams to understand their needs and deliver automation solutions that accelerate their work. Evaluate, prototype, and recommend new automation technologies and tools to continuously improve our development and operational capabilities. Script and automate complex, repetitive tasks to improve team efficiency and reduce the potential for human error. Must have: 5+ years of experience in DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or automation-focused software/data engineering. At least 2 years of experience in a technical leadership, team lead, or mentorship capacity. Expert-level, hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools, particularly Terraform. Deep expertise in designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines using tools like GitLab CI, Jenkins, or GitHub Actions. Strong scripting and programming skills, with expert proficiency in Python. Proven experience working in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure). US Citizenship (No Dual Citizenship). Nice to have: Experience building automation specifically for data platforms like Databricks or Snowflake. Familiarity with MLOps principles and tools (e.g., MLflow, Kubeflow). Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes). Experience working in a high-security DoD or Intelligence Community environment. Security Clearance: Active TS or TS/SCI clearance As required by local law, Accenture Federal Services provides reasonable ranges of compensation for hired roles based on labor costs in the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia, and the city of Cleveland . The base pay range for this position in these locations is shown below. Compensation for roles at Accenture Federal Services varies depending on a wide array of factors, in…