Senior Software Engineer, Network Automation

NorthMark Compute & Cloud; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

NorthMark Compute & Cloud is looking for a Senior Engineer to design and implement automation solutions for complex data center networks. You will leverage your expertise in Python and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure our network stack is efficient and reliable.

The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of computer networking and practical experience with infrastructure as code tools like Ansible and Terraform. Knowledge of cloud native technologies is a plus.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in software development and network engineering.
• Strong programming skills in Python.
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure as code tools.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain automation frameworks for network provisioning.
• Develop software using Python and deploy with Ansible and Terraform.
• Integrate network automation into CI/CD pipelines.

Skills

Python programming

Network engineering

Automation frameworks

Infrastructure as Code

CI/CD practices

Cloud native technologies

Problem-solving

Tools

Ansible

Terraform

Jinja2

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Overview

The Company 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.