Network Automation Engineer

Position Responsibilities:

Are you passionate about automating network operations at scale? As a Network Automation Engineer, you will play a critical role in developing, enhancing, and supporting automation frameworks that streamline multi-step device upgrades and validation workflows across large-scale infrastructures. Your work will directly support technical consistency, security compliance, and overall operational reliability. You ll operate at the crossroads of infrastructure automation, software orchestration, and systems integration. In this role, your contributions will drive real-world, automated device changes and continually improve network robustness. Key responsibilities include:

• Design, build, and maintain automation workflows for network device upgrade, validation, and management operations across extensive environments.
• Utilize Python and Ansible to automate configuration changes, orchestrate workflows, and enable efficient, repeatable network operations.
• Leverage both vendor-agnostic and vendor-specific APIs, SDKs, and automation toolsets to integrate network devices and platforms (e.g., Cisco, Arista, F5, Palo Alto).
• Build and enhance internal tools and user interfaces, including dashboard development using Django.
• Interact with REST APIs, facilitate robust data exchanges, manage structured data with JSON/YAML, and implement templating (Jinja2).
• Develop and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, code comments, and user guides for wide-ranging automation solutions.
• Contribute to the adoption and enforcement of CI/CD practices in GitLab, ensuring automation scripts and tools are versioned, tested, and deployed reliably.
• Leverage containerization technologies such as Docker for development, test, and deployment environments.
• Work cross-functionally with network engineers, operations, and leadership to identify and resolve automation opportunities or operational bottlenecks.
• Foster a collaborative, knowledge-sharing environment to escalate team automation capabilities and best practices.

Essential Skills, Experience

• Minimum 3 years of hands-on networking experience, including expertise in routing, switching, VLANs, VRFs, NAT, and high availability design.
• Direct experience with Cisco network devices; exposure to Arista, F5 BIG-IP, and Palo Alto technologies is advantageous.
• Strong proficiency in Python for automation tasks, including API integration, working with JSON/YAML data, and templating with Jinja2 (3+ years).
• Advanced Ansible skills, with experience authoring playbooks, roles, and working with vendor-specific Ansible collections (3+ years).
• Fluency on the Linux command-line, particularly for network operations and automation scripting.
• Practical experience working with REST APIs and vendor SDKs for network device management and automation integration.
• Experience in developing web-based automation tools or dashboards using Django.
• Demonstrated ability to produce clear, thorough technical documentation, and well-commented code.
• Solid understanding of modern source control and automation pipelines, particularly using GitLab and CI/CD workflows.
• Familiarity with containerization and Docker for development, testing, and deployment purposes.

Preferred Experience:

• Direct experience using Forward Networks for intent-based network analysis and state validation in complex networks.
• Hands-on work with pyATS/Genie for automated network testing, testbed creation, and Cisco configuration or state validation.
• Operational experience with Nornir, leveraging Python-native, parallel network automation across multi-vendor environments.
• Understanding and application of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices, including version-controlled network configuration management and automated, repeatable deployment pipelines.

Soft Skills:

• Excellent analytical and troubleshooting abilities to identify, diagnose, and resolve automation and device-related issues.
• Clear, concise communication skills for interaction with engineering, operations, and leadership teams.
• Organized, proactive, and able to thrive in fast-paced or ambiguous environments.
• Team-oriented and collaborative, willing to accept feedback and actively contribute to shared goals.
• Dedication to building scalable, maintainable, and reliable automation solutions for enterprise-scale networks.

ECCO Select is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. Our policy is to provide equal opportunity to all people without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, age, disability, pregnancy, genetic information, citizenship status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other legally protected category. Veterans of our United States Uniformed Services are specifically encouraged to apply for ECCO Select opportunities.