Senior Network Automation Engineer

Vast • Long Beach, CA

6d • $131,000 - $186,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Vast is seeking a Senior Network Automation Engineer to modernize its data center and campus network infrastructure. Reporting to the Senior Manager, Network Infrastructure, this role will design and maintain robust, vendor-agnostic automation systems for deploying, scaling, and lifecycle-managing complex EVPN-VXLAN underlay and overlay fabrics across Arista and Juniper environments.

The role applies modern software engineering practices and AI-assisted tools—including code copilots, agentic code generation, and Model Context Protocol interfaces—to accelerate automation development, testing, validation, and troubleshooting while creating deterministic, resilient systems. It also establishes Network as Code standards, governs data models and Single Source of Truth platforms, builds continuous network validation workflows, and provides technical leadership and mentorship.

This is a full-time, exempt position based in Vast’s Long Beach, California location. The role may require travel up to 20%, overtime or weekend work for critical mission milestones, and lifting up to 25 pounds unassisted. The listed California pay range is $131,000–$186,000 USD. Compensation is calibrated to the selected candidate’s experience and demonstrated capability.

Requirements

• 7–10 years of network engineering experience, including at least 4 years dedicated to network automation and NetDevOps practices.
• Deep expertise in underlay routing, including eBGP and OSPF, and overlay design using EVPN-VXLAN across enterprise-scale data center and campus networks.
• Engineering experience managing Arista EOS and Juniper Junos systems programmatically.
• Senior-level software engineering proficiency using Python, including Nornir, Asyncio, and NAPALM, or Go to build reliable internal infrastructure APIs.
• Practical experience using AI code assistants, prompt engineering patterns, or agentic frameworks to safely generate, refactor, and test automation code.
• Expert, production-tested experience with Terraform, Ansible, and standard GitOps workflows.
• Ability to travel up to 20% of the time.
• Willingness to work overtime or weekends to support critical mission milestones.
• Ability to lift up to 25 pounds unassisted.
• Specific certifications, as appropriate.
• The hired person must be a U.S. person as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing.

Nice To Haves

• High-tier certifications such as Arista ACE, Juniper JNCIE, Cisco CCIE, or DevNet Professional/Expert.
• Experience using open streaming telemetry standards such as gNMI and gRPC to monitor and parse real-time fabric state.
• Experience containerizing internal networking scripts or microservices using Docker or Kubernetes.

Responsibilities

• Develop end-to-end automation pipelines to provision and manage EVPN-VXLAN fabrics, including Symmetric/Asymmetric IRB, Multi-Homing, and Anycast Gateways, across Arista EOS/AVD and Juniper Junos/Apstra environments.
• Identify and integrate AI-accelerated workflows, including agentic automation testing, AI-assisted playbook generation, and natural-language telemetry querying.
• Maintain a vendor-agnostic Network as Code framework by translating platform-specific tasks into open, reusable YAML, JSON, and YANG data models.
• Own schema configuration and data definitions for enterprise Single Source of Truth platforms such as NetBox or Nautobot, mapping fabric intent to live states.
• Integrate validation and dry-run testing suites such as Batfish and pyATS into GitLab CI or GitHub Actions workflows to review network states before deployment.
• Define automation patterns and coding standards, establish guardrails for AI-generated logic, and mentor junior network developers.

Benefits

• Company equity for full-time employees.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• Generous paid time off, including up to 20+ vacation days for exempt staff and up to 10+ vacation days for non-exempt staff, with the ability to cash out unused vacation annually.
• Paid parental leave.
• Short- and long-term disability insurance.
• Life insurance.
• Access to a 401(k) retirement plan.
• ClassPass credits.
• Personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health.
• Other discounts and perks.
• Free snacks, drip coffee, cold drinks, and dinner meals; subsidized lunch.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed