Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Flexential is a company focused on network services, and they are seeking a Sr. Network Automation Engineer to design, build, and operate core components of their API-driven network automation platform. This role involves a combination of production software engineering and deep network and security domain expertise, ensuring the delivery of reliable and maintainable automation solutions.
Responsibilities
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Skills
- 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
- 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
Benefits
- 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
Company Overview