Network Software Engineer

NorthMark Compute & Cloud; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

NorthMark Compute & Cloud seeks an experienced Senior Engineer to design and build automation for provisioning and managing global data center networks. You will write Python, use Ansible, Terraform, and Jinja2 to implement scalable, self-service networking and integrate it into CI/CD pipelines.

You will collaborate with network engineers, platform and security teams to ensure reliable, secure, and efficient networking while owning projects end-to-end from design through production.

Qualifications

• Proven experience spanning software development and network engineering with automation ownership.
• Strong programming fundamentals and experience with CI/CD, version control, and testing.
• Experience with API design, service integration, or platform engineering.
• Familiarity with IaC and configuration management tools (Ansible, Terraform, Jinja2).

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automation frameworks for network provisioning across global infrastructure.
• Contribute to architectural discussions for long-term maintainability and scalability of automation.
• Develop Python-based tooling and IaC using Ansible, Terraform, and Jinja2.
• Integrate network automation into CI/CD pipelines for reliable deployments.
• Create APIs and tooling to expose networking capabilities as self-service interfaces.
• Implement observability and telemetry for network performance and reliability.
• Collaborate with Network Engineering, Security, and Platform teams to deliver scalable solutions.
• Participate in on-call rotations and incident response to improve reliability.

Skills

Problem solving

Ownership

Cross-functional teamwork

Agile methodology

Tools

Python

Ansible

Terraform

Jinja2

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

APIs

Job description

NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC²) is backed by dedicated leadership and investment, with a clear mission as it operates at the bleeding edge of technology. Its goal is to scale and enhance the high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud infrastructure that supports its clients\' research, production, and delivery, enabling breakthroughs that shape the industries of tomorrow. Its engineers build critical infrastructure to eliminate friction in scientific research, simulations, analysis, and decision-making, accelerating discovery and driving faster innovation.

NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC²) is backed by dedicated leadership and investment, with a clear mission as it operates at the bleeding edge of technology. Its goal is to scale and enhance the high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud infrastructure that supports its clients\' research, production, and delivery, enabling breakthroughs that shape the industries of tomorrow. Its engineers build critical infrastructure to eliminate friction in scientific research, simulations, analysis, and decision-making, accelerating discovery and driving faster innovation.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Engineer who is equally at home writing clean Python and reasoning about BGP - someone who has designed and built the tools and services that enable automated, scalable, and self-service networking across global infrastructure.

In this role, you will leverage your expertise in networking and software engineering to automate the provisioning and management of complex data center network environments. You will collaborate closely with network engineers, platform engineers, and security teams to ensure that our networking stack is reliable, secure, and efficient.

This is a hands-on engineering role. You will lead the design and implementation of automation solutions that support large-scale compute infrastructure, drive architectural decisions, and raise the bar on how modern networks are programmatically managed. You will own meaningful projects end-to-end, from design through production.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automation frameworks that simplify network provisioning and lifecycle management across global infrastructure.
• Contribute to architectural design discussions, ensuring automation is built for long-term maintainability and scalability.
• Develop software in Python and leverage tools such as Ansible, Terraform, and Jinja2 to implement software-driven network designs/IaC practices.
• Integrate network automation into CI/CD pipelines, enabling testable, repeatable, and reliable deployments.
• Build APIs and tooling to expose networking capabilities as self-service interfaces for engineering teams.
• Implement observability and telemetry workflows for network performance and availability using modern monitoring stacks.
• Collaborate with Network Engineering, Security, and Platform teams to deliver resilient and scalable automation solutions.
• Participate in on-call rotations, contributing to incident response, root cause analysis, and ongoing reliability improvements.

Requirements

• Proven experience spanning software development and network engineering, with direct ownership of automation and tooling projects.
• Strong programming skills in Python and solid software engineering fundamentals - testing, version control, CI/CD, code review.
• Experience with API design, service integration, or platform engineering.
• Familiarity with service discovery, secrets management, policy-as-code frameworks.
• Deep understanding of computer networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, load balancing, and network security concepts.
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management tools (Ansible, Terraform, Jinja2).
• Expertise in cloud native technologies including containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with distributed system concepts: microservice architecture, data consistency, fault tolerance strategies, security, and observability patterns.
• Strong problem-solving skills and comfort navigating ambiguity – you take ownership and drive projects to completion.
• Ability to collaborate effectively in cross-functional, agile engineering teams, and flexibility to adapt to fast-changing technical environments.

Preferred

• Experience with relational, NoSQL, or graph databases - we use a mix depending on the problem.
• Knowledge of event-driven or message-based architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Understanding of large-scale data center networking concepts and vendor ecosystems (Cisco, Arista, Juniper) and technologies such as segment routing, multitenant network designs.
• Deep understanding of routing, switching, firewalls, core protocols (BGP, OSPF, VRF, VLAN, ACL, firewall object groups etc.) and infrastructure design principles.
• Experience applying ML or AI techniques to infrastructure problems – for example predictive analytics, anomaly detection, or automated remediation workflows.
• Prior contributions to open-source networking or automation projects.