DevOps Engineer

Xiphos Systems Corporation, founded in 1996, is a vibrant and energetic company in the heart of Montreal’s Plateau area. For over 20 years, we have pushed the envelope of what is possible in NewSpace and secured the trust of various space agencies and space companies around the world. The industry has adopted our design approach and, as a result, we have been experiencing several years of rapid, steady growth and the trend is continuing!

Our vision is to migrate terrestrial computing and network communication techniques into space environments. The company’s expertise in networked processors has evolved into a line of high-performance, fault-tolerant flight control and sensor processing hardware and software solutions in wide and varied advanced space applications.

Xiphos’ primary markets are small satellites, space station applications, as well as lunar landers, rovers, and robotics. We have delivered our standard and custom products all over the world and have been essential to many successful space missions. With low power consumption, high processing power, enhanced flexibility, excellent robustness, and proven functions available off-the-shelf, our Q-cards are increasingly the preferred solution in the fast-growing field of NewSpace.

ROLE DESCRIPTION

We are looking for a DevOps / Full Stack Software Developer to join our Engineering Software team. In this role you will be the primary owner of the CI/CD platform that builds, tests, and releases firmware and embedded Linux images for the Xiphos Q-card family of space-grade compute modules. You will design and operate GitLab pipelines, manage infrastructure-as-code with Terraform, maintain build container images, and develop internal tooling and web dashboards that give the engineering team real-time visibility into build health, hardware-in-loop test results, and release readiness. This is primarily a DevOps and software engineering position; deep embedded Linux or BSP expertise is not a prerequisite, though familiarity with cross-compilation and Yocto-style build systems is a strong asset.

MAIN TASKS

• Own and evolve the GitLab CI/CD pipelines that build, lint, test, and release Yocto images across a 30+ machine matrix (Q7S, Q8S, Q8JS, Q8RF, Q9/Versal) - stages: prepare - lint - build - scheduled - release.
• Maintain and improve the kas / BitBake build pipeline: sstate caching strategy, disk-space guards, dry-run MR validation jobs, and cacheless (--no-setscene) baseline verification jobs.
• Manage the Docker build-container lifecycle: author Dockerfiles, publish versioned images to the GitLab Container Registry, and keep toolchain (kas, Vivado, cross-gcc) versions pinned and reproducible.
• Implement and enforce supply-chain security best practices: SLSA provenance (mode=max), SPDX / SBOM generation, artifact signing, and dependency-lock auditing.
• Own the Terraform-managed GitLab infrastructure (tf-git): project provisioning, CI template inheritance, semantic-release configuration, branch-protection rules, and mirror setup across 260+ repositories.
• Maintain GitLab Runner pools: capacity planning, Docker executor configuration, caching volumes, and runner-tag strategies for resource-intensive Yocto builds.
• Build and maintain internal web dashboards and CLI tools (Python / Go / TypeScript) providing real-time visibility into build matrix status, hardware-in-loop test results, and mission-ready release tracking.
• Develop and maintain Jira automation and reporting: REST API integrations, sprint health reports, release-gap detection, and XPM delivery-to-sprint coverage checks.
• Drive developer-experience improvements: pre-commit hooks (commitlint, Prettier, oelint-adv), MR templates, semantic versioning discipline, and onboarding guides.
• Act as first responder for CI failures across the Q-card release pipeline; triage root causes and coordinate fixes with firmware, kernel, and FPGA engineers.
• Maintain build and deployment documentation in the team wiki and user-manual CI pipeline (docs-builder Docker image, GIT_DEPTH=0 tag resolution).

DESIREABLE KNOWLEDGE AREAS

• GitLab CI/CD: pipeline authoring (.gitlab-ci.yml), stages, parallel matrix jobs, DAG dependencies, artifact passing, Docker-based runners, protected environments
• Semantic release and conventional commits: automated versioning, changelog generation, release tagging (semantic-release / release-please)
• Supply-chain security: SLSA (levels 1-3), SPDX SBOM generation, artifact provenance, dependency-vulnerability scanning
• Jira / Atlassian REST API: ADF document creation, JQL search, sprint management, webhook automation
• Yocto Project / OpenEmbedded: BitBake task model, kas config files, sstate cache, recipe authoring (familiarity sufficient — deep expertise not required)
• Cross-compilation concepts: toolchain triplets, sysroots, SDK generation
• Embedded Linux boot chain awareness: U-Boot, ATF, device trees (enough to interpret CI failures, not to author BSP code)
• Hardware-in-loop testing and lab automation: board flashing, serial console validation, mooctl-style inventory and power-control workflows
• Nice to have: hands-on Yocto / BitBake experience; familiarity with Xilinx / AMD tools (Vivado, PetaLinux); background in space or safety-critical development

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• 3+ years in a DevOps, platform engineering, CI/CD engineering, or SRE role
• Strong hands-on GitLab CI/CD (or GitHub Actions / Jenkins equivalent): pipeline design, Docker runner management, artifact strategies, and release automation
• Proficient in Python for automation, REST API integration, and CLI tooling
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools — Terraform preferred
• Solid understanding of Docker: authoring optimised images, managing a registry, and debugging container-based build environments
• Familiarity with Git workflows: conventional commits, semantic versioning, protected branches, MR/PR review processes
• Working knowledge of Linux systems (systemd, shell scripting, cross-compilation concepts) — sufficient to debug build failures
• Strong written and verbal English communication; French is an asset
• Eligible to work in Canada; ability to comply with export-control (ITAR/EAR) requirements

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