Lead DevOps-Network Automation Engineer

Overview

Lead the design and delivery of network automation, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and platform engineering across network environments, acting as a technical authority and mentor for IaC and automation in Network Engineering.

What you'll do

• Define and own IaC and network automation architecture, standards and reusable module libraries for the Network Engineering team.
• Design and build platform capabilities (APIs, self-service workflows, golden templates) that let Product and application teams consume network services faster.
• Drive adoption of SDN and cloud-native networking patterns across Core, Edge and SME environments.
• Evaluate emerging tools and recommend improvements, with a clear business case.
• Partner with Cloud, Platform Engineering, Security and DevOps teams to integrate network infrastructure into the wider technology ecosystem.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of IaC and automation projects, from requirements through production deployment.
• Design CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure with automated testing, validation, drift detection and safe rollback.
• Implement policy-as-code and compliance-as-code to enforce governance at scale.
• Establish GitOps practices so every change is version-controlled, peer-reviewed and auditable.
• Integrate automation workflows with our sources of truth.
• Set coding standards, review processes and documentation practices for infrastructure code.
• Act as the technical point of contact for IaC and automation in Network Engineering.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers on IaC, software engineering practices and tooling.
• Translate business and product requirements into scalable technical solutions and contribute to the modernization roadmap.

What you'll need

• 8+ years in systems, network or infrastructure engineering, with at least 3 years focused on IaC and network automation.
• Strong, hands-on Terraform (modules, state management, multi-environment) and Ansible (roles, inventories, AWX/Tower or equivalent).
• Strong Python for automation and tooling, plus working Bash/Shell skills.
• Expert-level Git and Git-based workflows, with CI/CD experience (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Azure Pipelines).
• Able to understand, troubleshoot and automate routing (BGP/OSPF), switching, VLANs, DNS/DHCP, firewalls and load balancers.
• Working knowledge of at least one major cloud (AWS, Azure or GCP) and its networking services (VPC/VNet, Transit Gateway, DNS).
• Policy-as-code; GitOps tooling (ArgoCD, Flux).
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading delivery in a team setting.
• Strong understanding and experience with REST APIs and web streams.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, systems engineering, information technology, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Nice to have

• Deep design expertise in routing, switching and network architecture.
• Network source of truth experience; YANG/NETCONF/RESTCONF.
• Cisco automation (DNA Center, NSO, NX-OS programmability); SD-WAN/SDN exposure.
• Experience with network automation libraries (NAPALM, Netmiko) and automated testing of infrastructure code.
• Docker, Kubernetes, Helm; Go or another programming language.
• Monitoring and observability including SLO/SLA tracking and Open Telemetry; tools like New Relic and SolarWinds.
• ITIL or similar service management knowledge; large enterprise or global IT experience.
• Certifications such as Terraform Associate/Professional, AWS/Azure/GCP networking or architect certifications, CKA, CCNP/CCIE (automation track), RHCE.
• Master's degree in computer science, software engineering, systems engineering, information technology, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Details

• Full-time role.
• Location: Pune, India.