Automation Engineer

Automation Engineer

The Automation Engineer designs and maintains automation frameworks and tooling for network configuration, compliance, and operations across multi-vendor federal environments. This role transforms manual network processes into efficient, secure, code-driven workflows.

• Design and maintain Ansible playbooks, roles, and collections.
• Build reusable automation frameworks for Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, and others.
• Develop CI/CD-integrated automation pipelines through GitLab, Jenkins, or GitHub Actions.
• Develop Python scripts and REST API integrations for automation workflows.
• Translate manual network processes into automated workflows with network architects.
• Implement infrastructure-as-code for scalable deployments and version-controlled configurations.
• Integrate automation into change control and compliance systems.
• Support large-scale configuration rollouts and image management.
• Incorporate DISA STIG, RMF, and C2C standards.
• Deliver documentation, training, and code reviews to teams.

Rack Build & Staging Automation

• Develop automation workflows supporting equipment inventory, staging, image deployment, configuration, testing, and deployment readiness across Cisco, Arista, server, and other infrastructure platforms.
• Develop Python-based automation, including Ansible, to push customer-provided configurations and installable system images to network and server equipment in controlled staging environments.
• Support development and validation of the standardized golden rack, and build repeatable scripts to validate all subsequent rack builds against the approved golden rack configuration.
• Develop automated pre-deployment and post-build validation for configuration, connectivity, system health, and baseline compliance, confirming equipment readiness prior to shipment.
• Integrate automated testing and validation with deployment workflows and generate results for engineering review and acceptance.
• Implement logging, error handling, exception reporting, and human approval gates within deployment automation workflows.
• Support automation of inventory reconciliation, build status tracking, and deployment reporting, scaling automation workflows across a multi-site rollout of staged racks.
• Automate application and validation of DISA STIG and DoD hardening baselines across staged network and server equipment.
• Build automated compliance checks to confirm staged builds meet RMF control requirements prior to golden rack certification and production replication.
• Generate automated compliance and vulnerability scan reports to support engineering review and customer acceptance.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in CS, IT, or related field.
• 3+ years Cisco networking experience, including 3+ years in automation.
• Active Secret clearance.
• IAT Level II/III certifications (CISSP, CISM, or equivalent).
• Strong TCP/IP, BGP/OSPF/EIGRP, VLAN, QoS, ACL knowledge.
• Proficiency with Ansible, YAML, Jinja2, Git.
• Experience automating Cisco IOS-XE, NX-OS, ASA/FTD, wireless.
• Python scripting for API integrations.
• Familiarity with CI/CD platforms.
• Experience automating image and configuration deployment in a staging or lab environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with NetBox, Nornir, Ansible, Python, Terraform.
• Experience with pyATS, Genie, Batfish for telemetry/validation.
• Understanding of DoD networking standards, DISA STIGs, RMF.