- Engagement
- 1099 consultant, path to full-time
- Location
- Remote, with San Diego onsite at times
- Practice
- AI Enablement, delivery infrastructure
- Start
- Immediate, scoped first engagement
Why this seat exists
F3 Insights builds business systems for executives at mid-market companies, across industries and across the executive team, through three practices: fractional CFO leadership, AI enablement, and revenue engineering.
We rebuild those pipelines engagement by engagement today. This role consolidates the work into one hardened pattern, applied across client environments and owned by one person. The first engagement is that rebuild. From there you extend the pattern into new client work and keep it running.
What you would own
Seven areas. The first engagement is the reference rebuild. From there the pattern extends into new client work and you keep it running.
CI/CD in GitHub Actions
Build, test, scan, and gated deploy, with branch protection and reviewer rules enforced in configuration rather than convention.
Container work in Docker
Minimal base images, pinned versions, vulnerability scanning, and promotion of one signed artifact through environments instead of a rebuild at every stage.
Infrastructure as code in Terraform
Module authoring, remote state, plan review as a required check, and scheduled drift detection with a written remediation path.
Cloud footprint on Azure and AWS
Identity and access, network boundaries, environment parity, cost tagging, and clean separation between client tenants.
Secrets and access
No static keys in repositories. Federated identity from CI to cloud, short-lived credentials for automation, and rotation on a schedule.
Observability and audit evidence
Logs, metrics, and alerting a delivery lead reads during an engagement, plus pipeline artifacts and approval records exported in a form a client auditor accepts.
Client handoff
Stand up a new client environment inside the first two weeks of an engagement, write runbooks the client team runs after we step back, and explain tradeoffs in plain terms to a finance audience in delivery reviews.
What we expect
Five years of production DevOps or platform engineering, two of them on cloud infrastructure you owned end to end. Consulting or agency background helps, since the work spans several client accounts at once.
Useful, not required
- Kubernetes with Helm, and GitOps delivery through Argo CD or Flux.
- Policy as code with OPA or Sentinel, plus supply chain controls such as SBOM generation and image signing.
- Evidence collection for SOC 2 or ISO audits, and comfort talking to an assessor.
- Deployment patterns for LLM applications: prompt versioning, evaluation gates before release, model routing, and token cost controls.
Who this suits
Our clients are executives and the operators who report to them, not platform teams. Infrastructure nobody else operates is a liability here, so documentation and handoff quality carry the same weight as the build. You write things down. You prefer predictable tools over new ones. You are comfortable telling a partner a deploy is not ready, and comfortable being wrong in a code review. Client data gets the same care as production credentials.
Engagement terms
Work starts on a defined scope with a written statement of work, either one client environment or the reference pipeline rebuild. Good work earns the next engagement. As the practice grows we expect this seat to become full-time. No date is attached to it, and we will state plainly where things stand at each renewal.
- Classification
- 1099 independent contractor, with a statement of work per engagement. You carry your own equipment and insurance.
- Compensation
- Hourly or fixed fee, set at the first call and based on scope and experience.
- Location and schedule
- Remote, with occasional onsite client work in San Diego. Hours flex to client delivery windows.
- Intellectual property
- F3i owns deliverables produced under the statement of work. Background IP you bring stays yours and gets listed in the statement of work before work starts.
- Term and renewal
- Each statement of work is scoped in weeks, not left open-ended. Extensions run through a written amendment.
- Invoicing
- Invoiced monthly against the statement of work. Payment terms are stated in the statement of work.
- Confidentiality
- Mutual NDA signed before client systems access. Client data stays inside client-controlled environments.
How to apply
Send the following to gena@f3insights.com with the subject line "DevOps Specialist".
- A short note on one pipeline you built, and what broke first once real traffic hit it.
- A resume or profile link. No cover letter.
- One repository, Terraform module, or workflow file you are willing to walk through live.
Selection process
- 01Screening call, 30 minutes. Scope of the first engagement, your availability, and rate.
- 02Technical conversation, 60 minutes. A walkthrough of your own code with a partner. No take-home project.
- 03References and paperwork. Two references, then a statement of work for the first scope.
We aim to give a decision within a week of the technical conversation. Questions about the role before applying go to the same address.
F3 Insights is an equal opportunity firm. Every qualified applicant is considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.