Automation Engineer

SambaSafety• US,

12d•$75,000 - $85,000

About The Position

SambaSafety is seeking a Software Operations Automation Engineer to design, implement, and maintain automation that removes repetitive manual work and improves reliability across operational workflows. The role builds robust, scalable pipelines and services, centered on Apache Airflow and scripting, to automate file movement, scheduled FTP jobs, application health checks, data validation and remediation, log- and table-driven alerting, and email-triggered actions. The engineer develops and maintains Airflow DAGs, automates operational tasks, and makes jobs reliable through idempotency, error handling, logging, and observability. The role also builds API-driven integrations; handles secrets and credentials securely; and works with Operations, Data, Engineering, and Product teams to identify opportunities, document solutions, and promote best practices. Responsibilities include monitoring pipelines and services, triaging incidents, and driving root-cause analysis and corrective action.

Requirements

Strong proficiency creating, scheduling, and monitoring Apache Airflow DAGs, including task dependencies, sensors, operators, and use of the Airflow UI.
Advanced Python and Shell (bash/zsh) skills, including writing maintainable, testable automation code.
Solid understanding of SQL, query optimization, data validation patterns, and transactional safety.
Experience with FTP/SFTP, checksum verification, encryption, and secure file-transfer patterns.
Practical knowledge of log parsing, metrics, tracing, and alerting, including dashboards and threshold- or condition-based alerts.
Proficiency with Git, including branching, pull requests, and code review.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for safely and repeatably building, testing, and deploying automation.
Comfort with REST/SOAP integrations, authentication flows such as OAuth2 and API keys, and pagination and rate limits.
Ability to design resilient jobs using retries/backoff, dead-letter queues, and structured logging.
Knowledge of secure automation practices, including secrets management, least-privilege access, auditability, and compliance awareness.
Methodical troubleshooting in production environments.
Ability to create clear runbooks and diagrams and provide stakeholder updates.
Comfort collaborating with operations, data engineering, software engineering, and product teams.
Ownership, prioritization, and a bias toward automation-first solutions with measurable operational impact.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Docker and Kubernetes for packaging and running automation services.
Exposure to AWS services such as schedulers, queues, storage, serverless, and IAM.
Background in ETL/ELT, data quality checks, and data lineage.
Experience with Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana, or similar observability tools.
Experience with infrastructure as code, configuration management, and environment standardization.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, schedule, and maintain Apache Airflow DAGs to coordinate operational tasks.
Automate file movement between systems and locations, including confirming successful sends and receives.
Run scheduled FTP pickups with retries and failure handling.
Implement automated application health checks and restart routines.
Perform database data validation, including referential integrity, threshold checks, and anomaly detection.
Create alerts for specified conditions found in log files or database tables.
Modify data based on query results using controlled, auditable procedures.
Consume emails and trigger appropriate automated actions, such as parsing inbox commands, routing attachments, and starting jobs.
Implement idempotent jobs, robust error handling, logging, and observability.
Build and maintain API-driven integrations between internal and external systems.
Handle secrets and credentials securely, enforce role-based access control, and align automation with relevant compliance requirements.
Partner with Operations, Data, Engineering, and Product teams to identify automation opportunities, document solutions, and promote best practices.
Monitor pipelines and services, triage incidents, and drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions.