[Bishop_]

DevOps isn't exactly an ancient field. I know you said you're already junior heavy but even if building someone up takes you six months you're going to likely be better off in the meantime than trying to find someone able to produce the value you need from day one.

My employer is also having trouble attracting senior frontend devs right now and our take seems to be that there's a lot of competition for good candidates, that's unlikely to change in the short term.

EDIT: Not to doom, but times are changing, might be worth evaluating if you really do NEED a senior. A lot of the way people look at used cars, and housing, (and gas prices), and remote work has changed in the past few years. Maybe easily acquiring senior devs is something that is also changing.