Orchestration
KubernetesEKSAKSGKEOpenShiftHelmVMware Tanzu
Platform and cloud · screened by AceMQ
Hire DevOps engineers vetted by a platform practitioner
Conntal places senior DevOps engineers who have run production platforms, not just pipelines. Every candidate is screened by a practitioner at Ace8 or AceMQ on a real incident scenario before you see them. Available contract, contract-to-hire or direct placement, onshore, nearshore or offshore.
Indicative rate: from $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore. See what moves it.
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct · onshore, nearshore, offshore · reviewed 31 October 2026
- Screen owner
- Messaging practice lead · AceMQRuns production RabbitMQ and Kafka estates for regulated enterprises.
- Titles we place
- DevOps engineer · DevSecOps engineer · Platform engineer · CI/CD engineer · Build and release engineer
- Platforms we screen on
- KubernetesEKSAKSGKEOpenShiftHelm
Rates
What a contract DevOps engineer costs
Senior contract DevOps engineer rates start at $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore. These are indicative from-rates, last reviewed 31 October 2026.
| Location model | From (USD per hour) | Where engineers are based |
|---|---|---|
| OnshoreHighest rate | $120/hr | US-based, on client time zones, cleared where the engagement requires it. |
| NearshoreOur default recommendation | $80/hr | Latin America and Canada, four hours or less of overlap loss, same working day. |
| OffshoreLowest rate | $80/hr | Europe, India and South East Asia. |
What moves the number
- Platform scarcity. The fewer engineers who have run DevOps in production, the higher the rate.
- Seniority. The figures are for senior engineers; staff and principal levels cost more.
- Clearance and residency. Cleared or on-site work narrows the pool and sits in the onshore column.
- Term. Length, hours and the engagement model change the rate; contract-to-hire and direct placement are priced differently.
Indicative from-rates for senior contract engineers, USD per hour. The final rate depends on platform scarcity, seniority, clearance and term.
The screen
How we vet DevOps engineers: the published screen
Every DevOps engineer is screened on the scenario below by the Messaging practice lead at AceMQ. The senior and mid answers are published so you can judge our bar before you engage us, and candidates know what they are walking into.
The screen · DevOps engineer
Conntal Vetting Standard
Scenario put to the candidate
A RabbitMQ quorum queue loses its leader during a rolling Kubernetes node upgrade. Publishers keep accepting writes, consumer lag climbs, and the on-call dashboard shows the cluster as healthy. Walk me through the first ten minutes.
Vetted by
Messaging practice lead · AceMQ
A senior answer contains
- Asks what the quorum size and the `cluster_partition_handling` setting are before touching anything.
- Separates the two failures: leadership re-election is expected, the healthy dashboard is the actual bug.
- Checks whether the pod disruption budget allowed more than one broker down at once.
- Knows that publisher confirms and consumer acks answer 'did we lose messages', and says so rather than guessing.
Where a mid answer stops
- Restarts the pod first and reasons afterwards.
- Treats consumer lag as the incident rather than a symptom of it.
- Cannot say what the cluster does when a quorum is lost versus merely reduced.
What we screen on
DevOps skills we screen for
DevOps candidates are screened on orchestration, pipelines and infrastructure as code, among others, against the stack you actually run rather than a generic checklist.
Pipelines
GitLab CIGitHub ActionsJenkinsArgoCDAzure DevOps
Infrastructure as code
TerraformAnsiblePulumiCloudFormation
Messaging in production
RabbitMQApache KafkaConfluentIBM MQRedis
Observability
PrometheusGrafanaOpenTelemetrySplunkDatadog
Security
FIPS-compliant buildssecrets managementpolicy as codeSBOM
Titles this covers
DevOps job titles we place
We place 8 titles in this area, from DevOps engineer to Kubernetes engineer. They overlap and are used inconsistently between companies, so tell us the outcome you need and we will tell you which title actually fits it.
- DevOps engineer
- DevSecOps engineer
- Platform engineer
- CI/CD engineer
- Build and release engineer
- Infrastructure engineer
- Cloud engineer
- Kubernetes engineer
The platforms, run in production by our network
Engagement
Ways to hire DevOps engineers
Platform work usually starts with a defined piece of change and becomes ongoing ownership, which is why most DevOps engineers engagements begin on contract. All three models are available, in any location model.
Contract
A vetted engineer embedded in your team for a defined term.
Hourly, billed against an approved SOW. Most common for migrations, upgrades and capacity surges where the work has an end date.
Contract staffingContract-to-hire
Work together first, convert when it is obviously working.
A defined conversion window and a pre-agreed fee, so the decision to hire is a business decision rather than a negotiation.
Contract-to-hire staffingDirect placement
A permanent hire, screened to the same standard.
One-time fee against first-year base. Used where the role is a long-term platform owner rather than project capacity.
Direct placement staffingNot a fit if
When to look elsewhere for DevOps engineers
We are the wrong choice if any of these describe your role, and we would rather say so on the first call.
- The role is a single pipeline or scripting task with no production platform behind it.
- You want a DevOps function run for you as a service rather than an engineer placed in your team; Ace8 delivers that, we place individuals.
- You need an entry-level hire; the screen is written for senior engineers.
How it works
How hiring DevOps engineers through Conntal works
- 01
Scope
A practitioner scopes the role
An engineer who runs this technology reads your brief and tells you what is missing from it. Most briefs we receive ask for the wrong seniority or the wrong title. - 02
Screen
We screen, then shortlist
Sourcing is ours; the technical decision belongs to the vetting practitioner. You only see candidates who passed the scenario on this page. - 03
Start
Start, convert or replace
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct. If the fit is wrong we say so first and replace rather than defend the placement.
Screen owner
Who vets our DevOps engineers: Messaging practice lead, AceMQ
Runs production RabbitMQ and Kafka estates for regulated enterprises, including quorum-queue migrations and Tanzu/Broadcom licensing transitions.
FAQ
DevOps engineers: what buyers ask
Something not covered here? Send the requirement and a practitioner answers it, not a sales queue.
How much does a contract DevOps engineer cost per hour?
Indicative senior contract from-rates are $80/hr nearshore or offshore and $120/hr onshore (USD, reviewed 31 October 2026). The final rate depends on platform scarcity, seniority, clearance and term. Contract-to-hire and direct placement are priced differently, and the delivery models page sets out how.
What is DevOps staff augmentation?
DevOps staff augmentation adds vetted DevOps engineers into your existing team, under your management, for a defined term. It suits pipeline rebuilds, platform migrations and capacity surges where your team owns the platform but needs more depth.
How fast can Conntal produce DevOps candidates?
We scope the role with a practitioner rather than a recruiter, usually within one business day of your brief. Shortlist timing depends on the stack, the seniority and the location model, and where our bench is thin we say so rather than send approximate candidates.
Do you offer contract-to-hire for DevOps roles?
Yes. All three models are available: contract, contract-to-hire and direct placement. Contract and contract-to-hire are the most common for platform work, because the scope usually starts as a migration and becomes ongoing ownership.
What is the difference between a DevOps engineer and an SRE?
A DevOps engineer usually owns the delivery path: pipelines, infrastructure as code, environments and release. An SRE owns production reliability: error budgets, on-call, capacity and incident response. Many candidates can do both, but the screen is different and we run them separately.
Can you staff DevOps engineers nearshore?
Yes, and it is what we recommend first. Nearshore keeps same-working-day overlap while aligning cost with budget. Onshore and offshore are both available where residency, clearance or follow-the-sun coverage decides it.
Who actually screens the candidates?
A practitioner from Ace8 or AceMQ who runs these platforms in production for enterprise clients. Recruiters source; engineers decide. The screen is a real production scenario, not a quiz.
Do you vet for DevSecOps and compliance-heavy environments?
Yes. Ace8's DevSecOps practice covers policy as code, secrets management, SBOM and FIPS-compliant build chains, and candidates for regulated clients are screened against those requirements explicitly.
What if the placement does not work out?
If the fit is wrong we say so first and replace the engineer rather than defend the placement. Replacement terms are agreed per engagement, so ask for them with your brief.
Do you also deliver DevOps consulting or support?
Not through Conntal. We place individual engineers into your team on contract, contract-to-hire or direct hire. If you want a project delivered or the platform supported as a service, AceMQ does that directly at acemq.com.
Related
Related roles
Need DevOps delivered as a project or supported as a service instead of staffed? AceMQ does that directly.
Need DevOps engineers? Start with the brief.
Send the requirement and an engineer who runs this technology will tell you what is missing before we source anyone.