Freelance Python Automation Engineer Jobs in Keller, TX

Senior Network Automation Engineer
Location: Dallas, TX | Hybrid
Type: Direct Hire
Relocation: Available for non-local candidates

Compensation
Competitive base salary + performance bonus
100% company-paid benefits

Overview
GTN is seeking a Senior Network Automation Engineer to design, build, and maintain the software, tooling, and automation frameworks that enable scalable, reliable, and self-service networking across a large global infrastructure environment.

This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who is equally comfortable writing clean Python, designing automation workflows, and reasoning through complex networking concepts such as BGP, routing, segmentation, and data center connectivity.

The Senior Network Automation Engineer will work closely with network engineering, platform engineering, security, and infrastructure teams to automate provisioning, lifecycle management, observability, and operational workflows across complex data center and cloud-adjacent environments.

The ideal candidate brings a strong mix of software engineering and network engineering experience, with a track record of building tools and services that make modern networks more programmable, reliable, secure, and efficient.

Key Responsibilities

Network Automation & Tooling
• Design, build, and maintain automation frameworks for network provisioning, configuration, and lifecycle management
• Develop software in Python to support scalable, reliable, and repeatable network operations
• Use tools such as Ansible, Terraform, and Jinja2 to implement infrastructure-as-code and software-driven network designs
• Build APIs, internal tools, and self-service interfaces that expose networking capabilities to engineering teams
• Integrate network automation into CI/CD pipelines to support testable, repeatable, and controlled deployments

Architecture & Platform Engineering
• Lead technical design discussions and ensure automation solutions are scalable, maintainable, and production-ready
• Drive architectural decisions around network automation, service integration, and infrastructure reliability
• Support large-scale compute, data center, and platform environments through programmatic network management
• Collaborate with platform, security, and infrastructure teams to improve network reliability, security, and operational efficiency
• Evaluate and implement modern automation patterns, service discovery, secrets management, and policy-as-code practices

Network Reliability & Operations
• Implement telemetry, observability, and monitoring workflows for network performance, availability, and health
• Troubleshoot complex issues across networking, automation, infrastructure, and application layers
• Participate in on-call rotations, incident response, root cause analysis, and reliability improvement efforts
• Apply deep networking knowledge to improve routing, segmentation, load balancing, firewall policy, and connectivity workflows
• Continuously improve operational tooling, deployment practices, and engineering standards

Required Experience
• Proven experience across both software engineering and network engineering
• Strong Python development skills with a focus on clean, maintainable, production-quality code
• Experience building network automation, infrastructure tooling, APIs, or platform services
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including testing, version control, CI/CD, code review, and design best practices
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code and configuration management tools such as Ansible, Terraform, and Jinja2
• Strong understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, routing, switching, load balancing, and network security concepts
• Experience with routing and network technologies such as BGP, OSPF, VRF, VLANs, ACLs, and firewall policy management
• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies, including Docker, Kubernetes, containers, and orchestration concepts
• Experience integrating systems through APIs, services, and automation pipelines
• Strong troubleshooting skills and ability to work across software, network, and infrastructure domains
• Ability to take ownership of ambiguous technical problems and drive solutions from design through production

Preferred Experience
• Experience in large-scale data center, cloud, HPC, AI infrastructure, or high-availability network environments
• Hands-on experience with Cisco, Arista, Juniper, or similar network platforms
• Knowledge of segment routing, EVPN/VXLAN, multi-tenant network designs, and large-scale infrastructure architecture
• Familiarity with distributed systems concepts such as microservices, fault tolerance, data consistency, security, and observability
• Experience with relational, NoSQL, or graph databases
• Exposure to event-driven or message-based architectures such as Kafka or RabbitMQ
• Familiarity with service discovery, secrets management, and policy-as-code frameworks
• Experience applying AI/ML techniques to infrastructure problems, such as anomaly detection, predictive analytics, or automated remediation
• Prior contributions to open-source networking, infrastructure, or automation projects

Ideal Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer who combines strong software development ability with deep networking expertise. This person can build reliable automation, understand complex network behavior, collaborate across technical teams, and take ownership of systems that operate at scale. They bring a practical engineering mindset, strong troubleshooting instincts, and a passion for making infrastructure more automated, observable, and resilient.