Position Title: Automation Engineer
About the Job
Role Overview
The Automation Engineer builds the automation that removes manual, repetitive work from the running of enterprise infrastructure and platform services. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on operational automation: provisioning, configuration, patching, routine operational tasks, and automated remediation.
Working within an established automation practice and alongside senior engineers, the Automation Engineer takes defined automation requirements and delivers reliable, well-tested, reusable automation. The measure of the work is straightforward: fewer manual steps, fewer tickets, and fewer repeat interventions by human operators.
The role complements the DevOps Platform Engineer, who builds the CI/CD and developer tooling platform. This role concentrates on automating infrastructure and operational activity across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and the on-premise estate.
What you will be doing
Infrastructure and Operations Automation
- Build and maintain automation that provisions, configures, and decommissions infrastructure across cloud and on-premises environments.
- Automate routine operational tasks including patching, certificate renewal, backup verification, log rotation, account administration, and service restarts.
- Convert manual runbooks into tested, repeatable, parameterized automation.
- Reduce ticket-based provisioning by delivering self-service automation that colleagues can run safely themselves.
Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code
- Develop and maintain Ansible playbooks, roles, and collections, executed through Ansible Automation Platform.
- Build and maintain Terraform configurations and modules for repeatable infrastructure provisioning.
- Keep environments consistent by detecting and correcting configuration drift.
Event-Driven and Self-Healing Operations
- Build event-driven automation that responds to monitoring alerts and platform events without human intervention.
- Implement auto-remediation for known, well-understood failure conditions using Event-Driven Ansible and equivalent tooling.
- Work with observability data from Datadog, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk to identify candidates for automation.
Technical Craft and Engineering Practices
- Write clear, tested, peer-reviewed automation code in Python, PowerShell, and Bash.
- Manage all automation in Git, following the team's branching, review, and release practices.
- Handle credentials and secrets through approved services such as HashiCorp Vault and CyberArk, never in code or configuration.
- Use AI-assisted engineering tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code to accelerate development, testing, and documentation, applying appropriate review and technical judgement.
- Document what each automation does, how to run it, and how it fails.
Collaboration and Ways of Working
- Work within an agile team with a shared backlog and defined customers.
- Take direction and technical guidance from senior engineers, and actively seek feedback and code review.
- Partner with infrastructure, cloud, and operations colleagues to understand the manual work worth automating.
- Contribute to incident response and follow-up actions where automation forms part of the remedy.
About You
Required
- Demonstrated capability in infrastructure, operations, or automation engineering, typically gained across two to four years of professional experience.
- Practical scripting ability in at least one of Python, PowerShell, or Bash.
- Hands-on experience with configuration management or automation tooling, ideally Ansible.
- Working knowledge of Linux or Windows server administration.
- Familiarity with at least one major public cloud, such as Azure or AWS.
- Experience using Git for version control.
- A methodical approach to troubleshooting and a genuine dislike of repetitive manual work.
- Clear written and verbal communication in English.
Preferred
- Experience with Terraform or another Infrastructure as Code tool.
- Experience with Ansible Automation Platform, AWX, or Event-Driven Ansible.
- Exposure to containers, Kubernetes, or CI/CD pipelines.
- Exposure to observability tooling such as Datadog, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, or Splunk.
- Experience working within a validated, GxP, or otherwise regulated environment, including awareness of data-protection obligations such as GDPR.
- Certifications such as Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, or AWS or Azure associate level.
- A bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, information technology, or a related discipline.
Core Competencies
- Automation-first mindset and low tolerance for repetitive work
- Attention to detail and care with production systems
- Curiosity and willingness to ask questions
- Openness to feedback and coaching
- Reliability and follow-through on commitments
- Strong appetite for continuous learning
Measures of Success
- Volume of manual operational tasks automated
- Reduced ticket volume for routine and repeatable requests
- Increased use of self-service automation by colleagues
- Reduced configuration drift and manual configuration changes
- Reduced repeat incidents through automated remediation
- Steady growth in technical depth and delivery independence