DevOps Engineer — Network Automation (Cisco & Cloud)

Job Title: DevOps Engineer — Network Automation (Cisco & Cloud)

Job Location: Dubai (Onsite)

We are seeking a hands-on DevOps Engineer with proven experience designing, building and operating network automation at scale. You will own and deliver Network-as-Code and Infrastructure-as-Code automation for a distributed on-prem encironment (100+ stores, warehouses and corporate sites) plus hybrid cloud connectivity (AWS and Azure). The role blends software engineering practices (CI/CD, GitOps, testing-as-code) with deep network device automation ensuring reliable, secure, and repeatable delivery of network services.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, operate and maintain network automation pipelines (Git, CI/CD) to provision, configure, validate and lifecycle network devices (switches, routers, wireless access points, firewalls, SD‑WAN appliances) across stores, warehouses, datacentres and cloud.
• Implement Network-as-Code using tools such as Terraform, GitLab, or similar; maintain reusable modules, templates and libraries.
• Integrate device automation with cloud networking (VPC/VNet, NSGs/Security Groups, Transit architectures, Direct Connect / ExpressRoute), firewalls, and identity/security services.
• Develop automated validation, testing and compliance checks as part of pipelines; enforce pre-commit and pre-deploy validations.
• Integrate automation with ITSM and CMDB (FreshService) for change control, inventory reconciliation and audit trails.
• Instrument observability for network automation: telemetry collection, automated drift detection, alerts, and runbook automation for remediation.
• Collaborate with Network, Security, Cloud and Applications teams to translate architecture into secure, repeatable automation patterns; provide technical mentorship.
• Contribute to standards, blueprints and runbooks for network configuration, segmentation, zero-trust access and change governance.
• Support incident response and post-incident automation-driven remediation; participate in on-call rotations as required.

Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years in DevOps/Network Automation roles supporting enterprise or large retail networks (or equivalent).
• Practical experience automating Cisco platforms (IOS-XE, IOS, NX‑OS, SD‑WAN/Cisco vEdge, DNA Center and Meraki) at scale.
• Strong Infrastructure-as-Code experience with Terraform and network modules; proven patterns for multi-site provisioning.
• CI/CD and GitOps experience (Git, Jenkins/GitLab CI/GitHub Actions, ArgoCD or equivalent).
• Scripting and software engineering skills—Terraform HCL; familiarity with testing frameworks (pyATS) and REST/NetConf/gNMI APIs.
• Knowledge of cloud networking (AWS and Azure): VPC/VNet design, Transit/Hub architectures, VPN/Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, and IaC for cloud networks.
• WAN transport & routing: strong practical knowledge of one or multiple protocols as BGP, OSPF, MPLS and routing design for multi‑region retail WANs.
• LAN switching & resiliency: VLANs, STP/RSTP/MST, L2/L3 designs, VPC, HSRP/VRRP and high‑availability patterns for store and datacentre access/aggregation.
• Network security fundamentals: firewall concepts, ACLs, NAT, VPNs, segmentation, micro‑segmentation concepts and experience automating firewall/device rule sets.
• Identity and access: AAA, RADIUS/TACACS+, 802.1X and device/user authentication integration with directory services.
• Excellent troubleshooting, documentation and collaboration skills.

Nice to Have

• Cisco certifications (CCNP/CCIE) or equivalent networking certs.
• Terraform Certified, AWS/Azure cloud certs, or relevant DevOps certification.
• Experience with SDN/intent-based networking (Cisco DNA Center, ACI), or cloud-native networking orchestration.
• Familiarity with observability/telemetry stacks (Datadog, Splunk) and automated remediation.
• Retail / multi-site operations experience (store connectivity, PoS resiliency, edge devices).

Impact & Success Measures

• Percentage of network changes delivered via automated pipelines vs manual.
• Time-to-provision for a new site or device (target reduction).
• Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) for network incidents.
• Number of automated validation tests and pass rate pre-deploy.
• Reduction in configuration drift and audit/compliance findings.
• Rate of successful automated rollbacks / change failure rate.