The Sr. Network Automation Engineer is a hands-on senior individual contributor role responsible for designing, building, and operating core components of the API-driven network automation platform that sits beneath Flexential’s customer self-service portal, enabling customers to order and provision network services on demand.
The platform exposes service catalog, feasibility, ordering, provisioning, and lifecycle APIs for L3VPN, Data Center Interconnect (DCI), IP Transit, Layer 2 transport, and cloud on-ramp connectivity, and executes those orders across Flexential’s nationwide multi-service backbone.
Scope and scale:
- 18 metros and 40+ points of presence
- A multi-vendor footprint spanning Arista, Cisco, and Fortinet routing, switching, and firewall platforms
- A 400G backbone modernization currently in flight to support Flexential’s interconnection and network services
This role combines production software engineering with deep network and security domain expertise.
The platform is original software developed in-house, not a packaged or open-source product deployed and configured, and the Principal Engineer owns delivery of major components end to end. This includes design, implementation, test, deployment, and operational support, working to the architectural standards and technical direction set by the Principal Network Automation Architect.
Work produced in this role is customer visible. The Principal Engineer is accountable for the correctness, reliability, and change safety of automation that fulfills customer-initiated orders against production network services, while also providing technical mentorship and design leadership to other engineers on the team.
Key Responsibilities and Essential Job Functions
Platform Engineering and Development
- Own the design and delivery of major platform components end to end, including backend services in Python (Flask), RESTful APIs, data persistence, and the supporting user interface.
- Build and maintain frontend components using JavaScript, Angular or React, and Bootstrap.
- Develop and consume RESTful APIs following an API-first platform model, including service contracts, versioning, authentication, and authorization.
- Implement and maintain data models and persistence across document, graph, and timeseries databases representing network state, service intent, and source of truth.
- Deliver reliable, testable, observable, and maintainable production-quality code with automated test coverage and CI/CD delivery.
Self-Service Product Platform and Service APIs
- Build and maintain the northbound APIs consumed by the customer self-service portal, including service catalog, feasibility, order submission, provisioning status, and lifecycle endpoints.
- Implement tenant-scoped authorization, rate limiting, and input validation for orders originating from the self-service portal.
- Implement idempotency, retry, and compensation logic so customer-initiated orders remain safe and consistent under partial failure.
- Instrument order-to-activation interval, provisioning success rate, and platform availability, and surface them to Product Management and Network Operations.
Network Service Delivery Automation
- Build and enhance the Python-based network-as-code platform, using Ansible and Terraform as supporting tools where appropriate.
- Develop orchestration workflows that provision, validate, modify, and decommission customer-facing services, including L3VPN, Data Center Interconnect, IP Transit, and Layer 2 transport.
- Implement automation for MPLS L3VPN and EVPN service instantiation, BGP peering and routing policy, and DCI turn-up across the backbone.
- Implement and maintain the vendor-abstraction layer and device drivers spanning Arista, Cisco, and Fortinet, including integration with Arista CloudVision Portal.
- Implement state reconciliation, drift detection, dry-run, and rollback mechanisms for automated production change.
- Build cloud connectivity automation: dynamic provisioning of hosted connections to AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute, and Google Cloud Interconnect via cloud provider partner APIs, including lifecycle management of customer cloud onramps.
- Build firewall policy automation for provisioning, change management, rule lifecycle, and compliance validation across the security estate.
- Build automation supporting the in-flight 400G backbone modernization, including turn-up, validation, and migration of customer services onto upgraded infrastructure.
Network and Security Domain Engineering
- Apply deep service-provider routing and network security engineering knowledge to automation design, service modeling, and validation logic.
- Implement RBAC, secrets management, and credential lifecycle handling for automated access to production network infrastructure.
- Ensure automation workflows meet operational, security, compliance, and audit requirements for customer-impacting change.
Enterprise Integration and Operations
- Implement integrations with ServiceNow for automated change records, CI enrichment, and CMDB correlation of network state.
- Instrument platform services and automation workflows for observability, partnering with IT Platform Engineering on metrics, logs, and traces.
- Participate in the platform on-call rotation and incident response for automation-driven change events.
- Contribute to technical documentation, engineering standards, design reviews, and operational runbooks.
- Provide technical mentorship to other engineers and lead design review for assigned platform areas.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of relevant technical experience building and operating production software and network automation systems.
- Platform / Software Engineering - 6+ years: production Python service development (Flask or equivalent), REST API design and consumption, data modeling, and automated testing.
- Network and Security Domain Depth - 6+ years: working expertise in MPLS L3VPN, BGP (including MP-BGP/VPNv4), EVPN-VXLAN, OSPF/IS-IS, Data Center Interconnect, IP transit, and multi-vendor firewall policy, sufficient to model these services as code and validate automated change.
- Network Automation and Orchestration - 5+ years: network-as-code, intent-driven provisioning, multi-vendor configuration management and validation.
- Product Platform APIs - 3+ years: building and operating service APIs that back customer-facing applications, including contract versioning, tenant-scoped authorization, and rate limiting.
- GitOps / CI/CD - 3+ years: pipeline authoring, automated test gates, and configuration-as-code delivery with tested rollback.
- Network Security Engineering - 3+ years: firewall and policy automation, RBAC, and secrets management.
- Data Engineering - 3+ years: document, graph, and timeseries databases for network state and automation metadata.
- Systems Engineering and NMS - 3+ years: Linux systems administration, network management systems, and operational tooling integration.
- Frontend Development - 2+ years: JavaScript with Angular or React and Bootstrap.
- Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and leading technical design for a platform area.
- Other training and experience may be substituted for the job requirements at the discretion of the manager.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience integrating with ServiceNow (Change, CMDB, Service Catalog).
- Experience delivering automation at scale in service-provider, carrier, or multi-site enterprise environments.
- Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and container-based deployment of platform services.
- Experience with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, or Grafana instrumentation.
- Experience with AI-assisted operations, including anomaly detection, event correlation, or agentic workflows.
Compensation
Base Pay Range: Annualized salary range offered for this position is estimated to be $170,000 - $190,000. However, the actual pay range depends on each candidate’s experience, location, and qualifications.
Variable Pay: Discretionary annual bonus, based on personal and company performance.
Not Meeting Every Requirement?
No problem!
We are looking for candidates who possess unique skills that set them apart from the rest. If you're enthusiastic about this role and believe you have the skills and abilities that would make you successful, don't hesitate to apply today!
At Flexential, we value diversity and believe that different perspectives and unique skills make us stronger as a team. While we've outlined the qualities and skills we are looking for in this job posting, we understand that there may be attributes and abilities that aren't explicitly listed but could be a perfect fit for our team. We want to emphasize that you shouldn't hesitate to apply if you don't meet every requirement. We're enthusiastic about assembling a diverse team of individuals who bring various talents to the table. Your unique perspective and abilities may be just what we need to drive innovation and success. If you believe you have what it takes to thrive in our environment, we encourage you to apply.
Benefits of working at Flexential
• Medical, Telehealth, Dental and Vision
• 401(k)
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• Life and AD&D
• Short Term and Long-Term disability
• Flex Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Leave of Absence
• Employee Assistance Program
• Wellness Program
• Rewards and Recognition Program
Benefits are subject to change at the Company's discretion.
Work Location Eligibility
At this time, we are only able to employ individuals who reside and perform work in states where the company is authorized to do business and maintain employment registrations. We are currently unable to consider applicants who reside or will perform work in the following states: Arkansas, Alaska, Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Washington DC.
Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States and must reside in a state where the company maintains employment eligibility at the time of hire and throughout their employment. State eligibility may be subject to change based on business needs and regulatory requirements.
Flexential participates in the E-Verify program. Please click here for more information.
EEOC Statement: Flexential is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.