Architect Network Automation

CBTS; Cincinnati (OH); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

CBTS seeks an experienced Python Software Engineer in Cincinnati to architect and develop production‑quality Python apps, libraries, and CLI tools for network automation, orchestration, and observability. You will design extensible architectures to abstract vendor differences and build robust API integrations across REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and JSON‑RPC platforms.

The role emphasizes SOLID design, testing, and contributing to developer guidelines while leading CI/CD efforts with GitHub Actions,

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional software development experience with Python as the primary language.
• Advanced Python features: type hints, dataclasses, async/await, context managers, decorators, generators.
• Experience building Python libraries, packages, and CLI tools (Click, Typer, argparse).
• Strong testing background: pytest, mocking, fixtures, TDD.
• Advanced Git skills (rebase, cherry‑pick, bisect, hooks).
• Hands‑on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Solid grounding in SOLID principles, design patterns, and clean architecture.
• Experience automating deployment and configuring CI/CD pipelines in production environments.
• Open‑source contributions or public automation portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Architect and develop production‑quality Python applications, libraries, and CLI tools for network automation, orchestration, and observability.
• Design clean, extensible architectures using patterns such as factory, strategy, adapter, and plugin‑based systems to abstract vendor differences.
• Build and maintain API integrations (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, JSON‑RPC) with platforms including various vendors.
• Develop internal Python packages with reusable components and tooling.
• Facilitate workshops, knowledge‑sharing sessions, and pair programming.
• Author and maintain coding standards, ADRs, and development guidelines.
• Establish and enforce code quality tooling: PEP8, Ruff, Pylint, Black, MyPy, Pre‑commit hooks.
• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins) for linting, testing, security scanning, build and release automation.
• Define Git workflows: branching strategies, pull request standards, code review expectations, release management.
• Create project templates, scaffolding, and cookiecutters to standardize automation development.
• Identify manual workflows and design automation solutions to eliminate them.
• Prototype new tools, frameworks, and approaches from idea through production adoption.
• Improve observability by integrating automation platforms with logging, monitoring, and alerting systems.
• Contribute to technology roadmap and vendor evaluation from a software architecture and productivity perspective.

Skills

Python

Design patterns

CI/CD

API integration

Networking fundamentals

Testing (pytest)

Tools

Click

Typer

argparse

GitHub Actions

Job description

Responsibilities

• Architect and develop production‑quality Python applications, libraries, and CLI tools for network automation, orchestration, and observability.
• Design clean, extensible architectures using patterns such as factory, strategy, adapter, and plugin‑based systems to abstract vendor differences.
• Build and maintain API integrations (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, JSON‑RPC) with platforms including:
• Develop internal Python packages with:
• Facilitate workshops, knowledge‑sharing sessions, and pair programming.
• Author and maintain coding standards, architectural decision records (ADRs), and development guidelines.
• Establish and enforce code quality tooling: PEP8, Ruff, Pylint, Black, MyPy, Pre‑commit hooks.
• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins) for:
• Linting, testing, security scanning, build and release automation.
• Define Git workflows: branching strategies, pull request standards, code review expectations, release management.
• Create project templates, scaffolding, and cookiecutters to standardize automation development.
• Identify manual workflows and operational pain points, then design automation solutions to eliminate them.
• Prototype new tools, frameworks, and approaches from idea through production adoption.
• Improve observability by integrating automation platforms with logging, monitoring, and alerting systems.
• Contribute to technology roadmap and vendor evaluation from a software architecture and productivity perspective.

Qualifications

• Software Engineering (Primary) – 7+ years of professional software development experience with Python as the primary language.
• Advanced Python expertise: type hints, dataclasses / Pydantic, async/await, context managers, decorators, generators.
• Experience building Python libraries, packages, and CLI tools (Click, Typer, argparse).
• Strong testing background: pytest, mocking, fixtures, TDD.
• Advanced Git skills (rebase, cherry‑pick, bisect, hooks).
• Hands‑on experience designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Solid grounding in SOLID principles, design patterns, and clean architecture.
• Experience writing technical documentation and developer guidelines.
• Strong understanding of routing (BGP, OSPF), switching, VPNs and firewalls, SD‑WAN, network security fundamentals.
• Experience automating at least two or more of: NetBox, Arista VeloCloud, Cisco Meraki, Juniper Mist, Palo Alto Prism, SD‑WAN, Fortinet SD‑WAN.
• Familiarity with Netmiko, NAPALM, Nornir, pyATS.
• Experience with JSON, YAML, XML, and Jinja2 templating.
• Terraform (including module or provider development), AWS networking and architecture, Docker, Kubernetes, Linux.
• Observability stacks: Grafana, Prometheus, ELK.
• Event‑driven automation: Kafka, RabbitMQ, webhooks.
• Database integration: PostgreSQL, Redis, SQLite.
• Internal developer platforms, self‑service portals, or ChatOps.
• Open‑source contributions or public automation portfolio.
• Relevant certifications (Cisco DevNet, CCNP/CCIE, AWS, Terraform).