Automation Engineer

SambaSafety• US,

6d•$75,000 - $85,000•Hybrid

About The Position

SambaSafety is seeking a Software Operations Automation Engineer to design, implement, and maintain automation that eliminates repetitive manual work and improves reliability across their operational workflows. The role involves building robust, scalable pipelines and services, primarily using Apache Airflow and scripting, to automate various tasks including file movement, scheduled FTP jobs, application health checks, data validation and remediation, log/table-driven alerting, and email-triggered actions. The company emphasizes an inclusive, supportive, and exceptional culture and has been recognized as a Top Workplace by multiple publications.

Requirements

Strong proficiency in Apache Airflow, including creating, scheduling, and monitoring DAGs, task dependencies, sensors, operators, and Airflow UI usage.
Advanced Python and Shell (bash/zsh) scripting and programming skills for 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 transfer patterns.
Practical knowledge of log parsing, metrics, tracing, and alerting (e.g., building dashboards, threshold/condition-based alerts).
Proficiency with Git (branching, PRs, code review).
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for building, testing, and deploying automation safely and repeatably.
Comfort with REST/SOAP APIs, authentication flows (OAuth2, API keys), and handling pagination/rate limits.
Ability to design resilient jobs with retries/backoff, dead-letter queues, and structured logging.
Knowledge of secure automation practices, including secrets management (e.g., vaults), least-privilege access, auditability, and compliance awareness.

Nice To Haves

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

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain DAGs in Apache Airflow to schedule and coordinate operational tasks.
Automate file movement between systems and confirm successful transfers.
Execute FTP pickups on defined schedules with retries and failure handling.
Ensure applications are running through automated health checks and restart routines.
Perform database data validation, including referential integrity, threshold checks, and anomaly detection.
Implement alerting for specific conditions identified in log files or database tables.
Modify data based on query results under controlled, auditable procedures.
Consume emails and trigger appropriate automated actions, such as parsing inbox commands, routing attachments, or initiating jobs.
Implement idempotent jobs, robust error handling, logging, and observability for all automation.
Build and maintain API-driven integrations between internal and external systems.
Handle secrets/credentials securely, enforce RBAC, and align automation with relevant compliance requirements.
Partner with Operations, Data, Engineering, and Product teams to identify automation opportunities.
Document solutions and evangelize best practices.
Proactively monitor pipelines and services.
Triage incidents and drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions.