Network Engineer

Job Title

Lead Automation Network Engineer - Load Balancing & Application Delivery

Job Location

Columbus, OH or Charlotte, NC

Employment Type

Contingent / Contract (No Conversion)

Work Arrangement

Hybrid / On-site as required

Job Summary

The Lead Automation Network Engineer - Load Balancing is a senior-level technical role responsible for the design, automation, and operational excellence of large-scale application delivery and load balancing platforms. This position focuses on building resilient, scalable, and secure Layer 4-7 traffic management solutions that support internet-facing, B2B, and enterprise applications within a regulated enterprise environment.

You will act as a technical authority, partnering across network, security, and application teams to drive automation, standardization, and reliability across global infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Design

• Lead the architecture and design of enterprise load balancing and application delivery solutions across data centers and cloud-adjacent environments.
• Define scalable, highly available traffic management strategies aligned with application performance, resiliency, and business continuity requirements.
• Serve as a subject matter expert for Layer 4-7 technologies including load balancing, SSL/TLS, DNS-based traffic steering, and health monitoring.

Automation & Engineering

• Design and implement automation-first solutions using Python , Ansible , and Infrastructure-as-Code principles.
• Develop standardized, repeatable workflows for provisioning, configuration, scaling, and lifecycle management of load balancing services.
• Utilize authoritative data sources and Source-of-Truth (SoT) models to ensure configuration accuracy, compliance, and reliability.
• Drive automated testing, validation, and orchestration to reduce deployment risk and improve delivery speed.

Operations & Reliability

• Ensure high availability, performance, and resilience of application delivery platforms supporting critical business applications.
• Proactively identify capacity, performance, and resiliency risks and lead remediation efforts.
• Perform failover testing, health validation, and certificate lifecycle management.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex load balancing and traffic management incidents with clear impact analysis.

Security & Compliance

• Implement and maintain security controls including TLS policies, WAF integrations, and access controls.
• Design compliant, hardened solutions in alignment with regulatory and enterprise security requirements.
• Collaborate with network and application security teams throughout the service lifecycle.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Act as a technical advisor to engineering, operations, and business stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers on load balancing technologies, automation best practices, and operational standards.
• Produce and maintain technical design documentation, runbooks, and automation frameworks.
• Participate in formal change management and governance processes.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Network Engineering or equivalent experience through work, education, training, or military service.
• 5+ years of experience building automation for network or application delivery platforms using Python and Ansible .
• Hands-on experience with load balancing and application delivery technologies (Layer 4/7) .
• Experience using Git and version-controlled workflows.
• Strong understanding of network data, data modeling, and Source-of-Truth concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in large financial services or regulated enterprise environments .
• Experience with load balancer automation, orchestration, and automated testing frameworks.
• Familiarity with ServiceNow, Nautobot, or similar network data management platforms.
• Experience with API-driven infrastructure (REST, GraphQL).
• Knowledge of Jinja, JSON, YAML, YANG, and related templating or data technologies.
• Exposure to CI/CD tools and workflows (Git, Jenkins, Jira).
• Strong technical documentation and communication skills.

Business Impact

This role is critical to the modernization of enterprise application delivery platforms and supports large-scale application migrations, data center modernization, and partner connectivity initiatives. Reliable and automated load balancing solutions directly impact application availability, performance, and transformation timelines.