Hybrid Network Automation Engineer

at Equinix

• Job title: Network Automation Engineer
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Junior, Mid level
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: Ansible, Firewalls, Grafana, iOS, Python, ServiceNow, Switching
• Location requirements: Hybrid, London, United Kingdom

About the role

• Network Automation Engineer driving transformation toward network-as-code at Equinix. Designing automation frameworks and coaching teams in NetDevOps practices within a global operational environment.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Requirements

• 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.

Benefits

• Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability.
• Equal Employment Opportunity: 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.