Automation Engineer

Role & Responsibilities 

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. 

• 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.