Senior Network Automation Engineer / Technical Lead, Global IT Services company

FT Select is a niche technology search and selection company, specialising in recruiting elite Sales Executives and high-end Technology Specialists for high-growth tech businesses.

We are recruiting for a Senior Network Automation Engineer / Technical Lead
for one of our clients, a global IT services company with enterprise/corporate customers mainly in the financial services sector.

We need a highly experienced Senior Network Automation Engineer to act as the Technical Lead for a critical transformation programme. The primary objective is to move the organisation away from fragmented, individual automation scripts toward a scalable, secure, and governed enterprise engineering platform.
This is not a “task-taking” role; we require a subject matter expert who can define the “North Star” architecture, establish rigorous governance standards, and lead the implementation of a full CI/CD lifecycle for network operations. You will be responsible for reducing operational risk by implementing standardised frameworks, secure secrets management, and automated validation processes.

Key Responsibilities
You will lead five core workstreams to modernize our network automation capability:
1. Governance & Development Standards
•Audit existing scripts and repositories to identify technical debt and security risks.
•Establish the “Gold Standard” for network automation: defining coding standards (Python/Ansible), repository structures, naming conventions, and Git branching strategies.
•Implement a formal peer-review and code quality assurance process.
2. Framework Development & Reusability
•Design and build reusable Python and Ansible project templates to accelerate future delivery.
•Develop shared libraries and common modules to eliminate duplication across the estate.
•Create comprehensive onboarding documentation to enable internal teams to adopt these frameworks.
3. Security & Secrets Management
•Lead the transition from hard-coded credentials to an enterprise-grade secrets management solution.
•Architect and implement the integration of HashiCorp Vault across Python scripts, Ansible playbooks, and CI/CD pipelines.
4. CI/CD Pipeline Architecture
•Design and deploy production-ready CI/CD pipelines for network changes.
•Integrate automated testing and validation gates using pyATS (or equivalent) to ensure stability before deployment.
•Ensure full auditability of code changes, pipeline executions, and resulting network state changes.
5. Compliance & Operational Assurance
•Develop a “Desired State” configuration compliance framework.
•Build automated pre-change validation and post-change verification workflows to reduce the risk of outages during maintenance windows.
•Implement automated compliance reporting and operational dashboards.

Required Skills & Experience
Essential (Technical Leadership)
•Enterprise Network Automation: Proven track record of leading automation projects in large, complex network environments.
•Advanced Python & Ansible: Expert-level proficiency in developing scalable, maintainable code for network engineering.
•DevOps Tooling: Deep experience with Git (version control), CI/CD pipeline orchestration, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.
•Security Integration: Direct experience implementing HashiCorp Vault or similar secrets management tools within an automation context.
•Validation Frameworks: Experience with network testing frameworks, specifically pyATS, Robot Framework, or similar.
•Governance Design: Ability to define and enforce engineering standards, lifecycle management, and architectural blueprints.

Location: Hybrid (2–3 days per week in London / remainder remote)
Engagement Type: Contract
Duration: Up to end of December (2026) with potential for extension
Engagement: Mostly 9-5, potentially some OOO for implementation/ testing.
Rate: Competitive day rate