Network Automation Engineer
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Network Automation Engineer
- JR-159507
- Hybrid
- London
- Slough
- Technology
- Full time
Who are we?
Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company®, shortening the path to connectivity to enable the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet.
A place where bold ideas are welcomed, human connection is valued, and everyone has the opportunity to shape their future.
Job Summary
As a Network Automation Engineer, you will drive our transformation toward network‑as‑code across a global operational environment. You’ll design and build automation frameworks, evolve our CI/CD pipelines, and coach traditional network engineers into modern NetDevOps practices. While automation is your primary focus, this is not a purely software role—you will remain hands‑on with production Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, wireless, and load‑balancer platforms. Your success is measured by network reliability, operational excellence, and engineering effort eliminated through automation.
Responsibilities
Network Automation & Transformation (Core Focus)
Own the network‑as‑code lifecycle end‑to‑end, from design to production rollout.
Build automation frameworks for provisioning, configuration deployment, validation, and rollback across Cisco IOS/NX‑OS, Junos, and PAN‑OS.
Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines including linting, schema validation, staging, lab testing, and phased deployment.
Coach the network engineering team through pair programming, code reviews, and structured upskilling sessions.
Build reusable libraries of Ansible roles, Python modules, and automation tooling that scale across teams.
Contribute to automation tooling aligned with Equinix’s emphasis on scalable, containerized network test environments and Python‑based automation.
Network Operations & Platform Support
Serve as Tier 2 escalation for global network incidents and service requests across routing, switching, firewalls, wireless, and load‑balancing platforms.
Perform triage, troubleshooting, and resolution; participate in post‑incident reviews and follow‑on automation improvements.
Execute health checks, config updates, upgrades, and standards enforcement across multi‑vendor environments.
Participate in a periodic weekend on‑call rota (<10%) and provide on‑site support as needed.
Observability, Telemetry & SRE Practices
Build Grafana dashboards, alerting rules, and telemetry pipelines to improve reliability and reduce noise (<15% false positives).
Help mature SRE capabilities, including defining SLIs/SLOs, tracking error budgets, and leading blameless post‑incident reviews.
Apply modern data‑driven operational patterns aligned with Equinix’s focus on scalable automation, network observability, and actionable analytics.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Network Engineering, IT, or related field—or equivalent professional experience with portfolio evidence.
Proven years of hands‑on network engineering experience in enterprise or service‑provider environments.
2+ years dedicated to network automation/NetDevOps with demonstrable tooling shipped to production.
Multi‑vendor platform experience: Cisco and Juniper required; Palo Alto and F5 preferred.
Proven ability to take automation from concept to measurable outcomes, backed by data and stakeholder communication.
Experience working in Agile/Scrum or Kanban environments.
Familiarity with ServiceNow and ITIL workflows (Incident, Request, Problem, Change).
Excellent English communication skills and comfort operating in a global, follow‑the‑sun team model.
Cisco CCNP/CCIE, Juniper JNCIP/JNCIE.
Cisco DevNet Professional/Expert.
Palo Alto PCNSE or firewall automation certification.
Wireless certifications (Juniper Mist or Meraki).
Open‑source contributions to networking or automation projects.
Experience with SRE/NRE operating models using SLOs and error budgets.
Strong Python automation background and experience with scalable/containerized test frameworks, aligning with other Equinix automation roles.
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Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law.
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