Network Automation Engineer – Configuration Management (w/ active Secret)

Critical Solutions•Norfolk, VA

1d•$85,000 - $110,000•Onsite

About The Position

Critical Solutions has an immediate opening for a Network Automation Engineer - Configuration Management. The Configuration Management Engineer is responsible for ensuring the stability, consistency, and compliance of the enterprise network infrastructure. This role focuses on maintaining the lifecycle of network device configurations across all nodes (routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers). The engineer will eliminate manual errors and baseline drift by leveraging modern Network Management Systems (NMS) and advanced infrastructure-as-code automation frameworks.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Engineering discipline
Ansible, Terraform, Python, Jinja2 and other template modeling.
Cisco Catalyst Center, OpenText Network Automation, Nautobot, Infoblox IPAM, Wireshark.
Git, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Docker.
Solid understanding of BGP, OSPF, VLANs, VRFs, ACLs, and SSH/SNMP protocols.
Cisco IOS/IOS-XE/XR, Juniper JunOS, Arista EOS.
Data-driven analytical thinker skilled at tracking down anomalies in massive configuration text files.
Detail-oriented planner capable of coordinating large-scale automated pushes across global time zones.
Must possess an active DoD Secret Clearance.
Undergo background investigation (BI) and finger printing by the federal agency and successfully pass the preceding to qualify for the position.
US CITIZENSHIP IS REQUIRED.

Responsibilities

Establish official baselines for all production network node types across the global footprint.
Perform drift detection to continuously audit real-time configurations against approved gold standards.
Manage configuration backups and rollback procedures to ensure rapid disaster recovery.
Enforce compliance standards by executing automated remediation on non-compliant infrastructure nodes.
Administer NMS platforms (Cisco Catalyst Center, OpenText NNMi, OpenText Network Automation and others) for inventory discovery and configuration storage.
Integrate Source-of-Truth systems (Nautobot) with the NMS to keep network topology and IPAM data synchronized.
Configure alert thresholds within the NMS to flag unauthorized manual configuration changes instantly.
Generate compliance reports for leadership and audit teams regarding network patch levels and vulnerabilities.
Write automation playbooks using tools like Ansible, Terraform, and Python to push global changes safely.
Maintain Git repositories for the network infrastructure code, managing pull requests and peer configuration reviews.
Build CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins) to validate, lint, and dry-run network changes before deployment.
Develop automated validation workflows to check network health before and after a change window.
Review high-impact modifications to ensure alignment with standard architecture templates.
Provide Tier-3 troubleshooting for complex network outages caused by configuration discrepancies or failed software upgrades.
Coordinate mass patching campaigns to fix vendor software vulnerabilities across thousands of active network nodes.