DevOps Engineer — Kubernetes & GitOps

Company

Tort is a legal technology company that provides AI-integrated practice management software for Personal Injury law firms. We build technology that arms Trial Lawyers to fight and win for their clients. We were founded in 2026 by University of Southern California alumni, with specialization in AI and confidential data security. Our mission is to build the technology infrastructure that Trial Lawyers use to help injury victims and their families.

Role

As our first DevOps engineer, you will own the Kubernetes platform that runs Tort end-to-end — the DOKS cluster lifecycle, the Argo CD GitOps layer, the Terraform infrastructure-as-code, and the policy + supply-chain controls (Kyverno, Cosign, SOPS) that keep us audit-ready. This is the role the ADR-0103 runbook was written for; you will operationalize it.

If you have run Kubernetes in production for a regulated product — shipped a GitOps pipeline, defended it in a SOC 2 or HIPAA audit, and walked out with a clean report — you will recognize the stack on day one. We are pre-launch, so you will shape the platform before it carries load, not patch it after.

Responsibilities

• Own the DOKS cluster lifecycle — worker-node pool upgrades, version bumps, and capacity planning (DOKS manages the control plane; you own the worker side).
• Own the Argo CD GitOps layer and the `infra/k8s/` manifest tree — every change to production flows through a PR, not a `kubectl apply`.
• Own the Dagger execution-engine pipelines in `tools/ci/` that build, test, and sign every artifact.
• Own the Terraform in `infra/terraform/` that provisions the cloud surface (DOKS, Spaces, DNS, managed Postgres).
• Own the policy + supply-chain controls: Kyverno policies, Cosign image signing, SOPS + age secrets-in-git rotation.
• Own on-call for the cluster (PagerDuty/Opsgenie) — the manual-sync-for-prod, automated-for-lower-envs posture ADR-0103 establishes.
• Partner with the founder on architecture decisions as we scale from solo to a team of 5–20 engineers.

Core technical skills

• Production Kubernetes (CKA or CKAD preferred).
• Argo CD or Flux GitOps in production.
• Terraform for cloud infrastructure (DigitalOcean, AWS, or GCP — the IaC skill transfers).
• Cosign / Sigstore image signing or an equivalent supply-chain attestation tool.
• Kyverno or OPA Gatekeeper for Kubernetes policy.
• SOPS + age (or an equivalent secrets-in-git pattern).
• On-call tooling — PagerDuty or Opsgenie.

Must haves

• You have run Kubernetes in production for a real product, not just a homelab.
• You have operated a GitOps pipeline (Argo CD or Flux) that deployed to production.
• You have been on-call and shipped an incident response you can walk through end-to-end.
• You understand the regulated-environment discipline — manual-sync for prod, automated for lower envs, audit-log-as-git-history — without it being explained twice.
• Fast speed to output with high attention to detail; self-driven ownership from day one.

Preferred

• You have personally shipped infrastructure that handled PHI, defended it in a SOC 2 Type II or HIPAA audit, and walked out with a clean report.
• Dagger or a similar execution-engine (you are willing to learn — it is newer).
• GitHub Actions + Actions Runner Controller (ARC).
• CS degree from a top-50 US university, 3.5+ GPA (Bachelor's required).

Logistics

• Full-time, generous salary + equity.
• This role is in-person in our Dallas, TX office.
• You will report to the founder.