Automation Engineer

Nexthop AI; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Nexthop AI is seeking a seasoned automation engineer to design and maintain large-scale test automation frameworks for network devices. You will architect CI/CD pipelines that deploy container topologies, execute tests, and publish reports across multi-DUT environments.

You will automate end-to-end network testing (L2/L3, BGP/EVPN, QoS), integrate traffic generators, and enforce automation best practices across multiple teams.

Qualifications

• Requires a Bachelor's degree in CS/SE/EE or related field.
• Minimum 15 years of experience in test automation, SDET, DevOps, or network engineering.
• Expert-level Python skills with pytest-based frameworks and utilities.
• Strong knowledge of networking protocols (BGP, OSPF, EVPN, VXLAN, MPLS).
• Experience with NOS such as SONiC and automated configuration and debugging.
• Experience with traffic generators and programmatic control via APIs.
• Experience with containerization and IAAC patterns for test environments.
• Proven ability to design and operate network test frameworks and debug complex issues.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI).

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and own large-scale test automation frameworks for network devices.
• Architect and implement CI/CD pipelines for container topologies and test reporting.
• Develop and maintain configuration workflows for multi-DUT environments.
• Automate end-to-end network feature and platform testing (L2/L3, BGP/EVPN, QoS, ACLs).
• Integrate traffic generators and validate forwarding behavior and performance.
• Establish automation best practices across engineering teams for reliability.
• Collaborate with Software and Hardware Engineering on test strategies.
• Track metrics for test execution, quality trends, and automation adoption.
• Mentor engineers in Python, network automation, and DevOps practices.

Skills

Python

pytest

SDET

DevOps

CI/CD

Networking

Test Automation

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

containerlab

Snappi/OTG

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Kubernetes

NOS SONiC

Job description

Company Description:

Nexthop AI is a team of industry-leading professionals with deep hardware and software expertise spanning silicon, systems, network operations and cloud development, dedicated to building innovative, bleeding-edge solutions for large-scale AI deployments. The team culture thrives on collaboration, creativity and fun while delivering foundational technologies for next-generation AI infrastructure.

Job Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and own large-scale test automation frameworks for network devices using both open source and custom test frameworks, covering both physical and container-based topologies.
• Architect and implement CI/CD pipelines that automatically deploy container topologies, execute test plans, and publish test reports and logs.
• Develop and maintain configuration workflows and schemas, integrating with the NOS agnostic configuration services to generate, validate, and apply complex configurations across multi-DUT environments.
• Automate end-to-end network feature and platform testing (L2/L3, BGP/EVPN, QoS, ACLs, platform health).
• Integrate and automate traffic generators (IXIA / IXIA-c, Spirent, Snappi/OTG) to validate forwarding behavior, convergence, and performance as part of regression and release test suites.
• Establish and enforce automation best practices for test structure, logging, cleanup, reusability, and reliability across multiple engineering teams.
• Collaborate closely with Software and Hardware Engineering teams to design test strategies for new features, platform bring-up, and regression suites; provide early feedback on design from an automation and testability perspective.
• Use well defined metrics to track test execution, quality trends, and contribution impact; define and report automation metrics such as test coverage, CI/CD pipeline efficiency, and automation adoption rates.
• Mentor and guide other engineers in Python development, network test automation, and modern DevOps practices, helping to grow a strong automation culture across Nexthop AI.

Qualifications:

We’re seeking individuals who thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative startup and possess exceptional problem-solving skills and a strong aptitude for taking initiative, learning, and driving high-quality automation. Additionally we value individuals who practice and instill empathy for both internal and external users of our test infrastructure. The following skills are essential for this role:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering or a related field.
• Minimum 15 years of experience in roles focused on test automation, SDET, DevOps, or network engineering, with significant responsibility for designing and operating automated test systems.
• Expert-level Python skills, with deep experience building and maintaining pytest-based frameworks (fixtures, plugins, parametrization, markers) and shared test utilities.
• Proficient in networking protocols and technologies such as BGP, OSPF, EVPN, VxLAN, MPLS, and modern data center architectures (Clos/leaf-spine, ECMP, overlay/underlay).
• Extensive hands-on experience with network operating systems (NOS) such as SONiC, IOS, IOS-XR, EOS, Junos, and similar, including automated configuration, show/parse cycles, and debugging.
• Experience testing and automating SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) or comparable open-network NOS; familiarity with config_db, YANG models, and SAI is highly desirable.
• Proven ability to design and operate network test frameworks and to effectively debug and troubleshoot complex networking and system issues discovered by automated tests.
• Significant experience with traffic generators (IXIA / IXIA-c, Spirent, or similar) and programmatic control via APIs (Snappi/OTG or vendor SDKs), including automation of flows, sessions, and KPI validation.
• Strong background in containerization and virtual topologies, including Docker, containerlab, Linux networking, and infrastructure-as-code patterns to describe and deploy test environments.
• Demonstrated experience with CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, etc.), including building, optimizing, and maintaining pipelines for automated testing and reporting.
• Hands‑on experience with YAML/JSON configuration management, schema design, and integration with config translation/validation tools.
• Significant experience in DevOps, Network Operations, or Network Engineering within a cloud provider or enterprise‑level team, with a strong emphasis on automation and reliability.

Why Us:

Our company bolsters all the advantages of working at a startup with the expertise of aseasoned team who have successfully built startups into thriving companies. Here you’ll havethe unique opportunity to collaborate and learn from top-tier engineers, while still working onmission critical projects. If you are excited to learn, solve hard problems at the forefront ofcomputer systems, and be a part of shaping a burgeoning company, this is the place for you.