Equinix is the world's digital infrastructure company®, shortening the path to connectivity to enable the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet.
A place where tech thinkers and future builders turn bold ideas into breakthrough experiences, we welcome your unique perspective.
Help us challenge assumptions, uncover bias, and remove barriers-because progress starts with fresh ideas. You'll find belonging, purpose, and a team that welcomes you-because when you feel valued, you're empowered to do your best work.
We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Staff Software Engineer / Network Automation Architect to design and build the next generation of software that operates a large, globally distributed, multi-vendor production network.
This opportunity is designed for an engineer with a distinctive combination of experience:
You began your career working directly with routers, switches, routing protocols, network configurations, and production incidents.
You transitioned from traditional network engineering into software engineering and Python development.
You have designed and built network automation systems, not just individual scripts or playbooks.
You understand how software decisions affect live network devices and know how to automate change safely.
You want to remain deeply hands-on in coding, architecture, testing, and platform design.
This is a senior individual-contributor role. Approximately 99% of the position is focused on coding and design. Although you will provide technical leadership and mentor engineers, this is not a people-management position.
The Opportunity
You will own the architecture and engineering direction of a new network infrastructure automation platform. The platform will automate provisioning, configuration, validation, compliance, state collection, and safe change execution across Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Arista, and other network environments.
A key focus of the role is moving beyond the current automation platform and creating new, modern capabilities using Python, Ansible, relational data models, APIs, background workers, testing frameworks, and AI-assisted engineering tools.
You will help build this platform from its early stages, define its architecture, establish its engineering standards, and write the production code that brings it to life.
This is not a traditional network architecture role, a pre-sales position, or a scripting-only automation role. We need an engineer who understands both sides of the problem: how production networks operate and how reliable software platforms are designed, developed, tested, deployed, and maintained.
What You Will Deliver
In this role, you will:
Architect and build a new network infrastructure automation platform from the ground up.
Refactor legacy Python components using incremental and well-tested modernization strategies.
Diagnose performance and reliability issues involving network round trips, concurrent device operations, database contention, worker capacity, and batch execution.
Design systems that support idempotency, bounded concurrency, appropriate retries, backpressure, and recovery from partial failures.
Establish coding standards and help other engineers improve the quality, readability, testing, and maintainability of their work.
Ansible Platform Engineering
Design and develop Ansible-based network automation, including inventories, roles, collections, modules, plugins, and execution workflows.
Integrate Ansible with Python services, relational data, source-of-truth systems, approval processes, and operator-facing workflows.
Define standards for reusable automation instead of creating vendor-specific or site-specific playbooks that cannot scale.
Establish execution controls that support dry runs, configuration differences, approvals, staged deployment, post-change validation, and rollback.
Improve the observability, auditability, and repeatability of Ansible-driven operations.
Support Ansible Automation Platform or comparable centralized orchestration capabilities where appropriate.
Data Architecture and MariaDB
Design and maintain relational data models for devices, interfaces, sites, inventory, network intent, observed state, automation jobs, approvals, and compliance exceptions.
Develop parameterized SQL queries and reliable data-access layers.
Create appropriate keys, constraints, indexes, and data-retention strategies.
Tune production queries and resolve performance or concurrency problems.
Plan and execute safe database schema migrations.
Define which information is authoritative, which information is derived from device polling, and how conflicting or stale information should be handled.
Ensure the platform publishes accurate, current, and traceable information.
Source of Truth and State Reconciliation
Establish clear architectural boundaries for source-of-truth, IP address management, inventory, intended configuration, and observed device state.
Design workflows that reconcile intended and observed state without making unsafe assumptions.
Create mechanisms to detect stale inventory, configuration drift, incomplete changes, and inconsistent network state.
Ensure all automated decisions are traceable to authoritative data and approved network standards.
Define freshness, coverage, accuracy, and reliability metrics for platform-published data.
Production Safety and Change Control
Design automation with the understanding that a software defect may misconfigure or isolate a production network device.
Identify automation designs that create unacceptable blast radius and replace them with safer, staged approaches.
Build change workflows that include:
Pre-change validation
Dry-run execution
Configuration differences
Human or policy-based approval
Canary or staged rollout
Confirmed commit where supported
Post-change verification
Stop conditions
Audit trails
Rollback or forward-recovery procedures
Define how the system should respond to device unavailability, authentication failures, timeouts, partial commits, stale data, telemetry gaps, and inconsistent state.
Partner with network engineering, security, and operations teams to certify new automated actions before production use.
Ensure device-affecting automation is never promoted solely because the generated configuration or code appears plausible.
Quality Engineering
Define the testing strategy for software that provisions or modifies production network infrastructure.
Develop unit, integration, contract, cross-functional, and automated regression tests.
Create realistic device fixtures using captured and sanitized configurations, mocked transports, and structured test data.
Use virtual or containerized labs to validate Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Arista, and other vendor behaviors where appropriate.
Establish contract tests for reusable device drivers and vendor-abstraction layers.
Validate configuration rendering, command execution, state parsing, failure recovery, and rollback behavior.
Hold AI-generated and human-written code, configurations, and templates to the same evidence standard.
Require lab validation, peer review, automated testing, and controlled promotion before high-risk changes reach production.
AI-Assisted Engineering and Agent Systems
Use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate appropriate engineering activities while independently validating their output.
Help define where AI assistance is beneficial, where it introduces unacceptable risk, and where human approval must remain mandatory.
Evaluate AI-supported use cases such as:
Network intent extraction
Code and test generation
Configuration analysis
Change summarization
Compliance exception analysis
Anomaly identification
Incident triage
Operational knowledge retrieval
Design validation mechanisms for non-deterministic output.
Prevent autonomous AI or agent-based systems from making unverified production network changes.
Define test evidence, evaluation measures, approval requirements, and audit controls for AI-generated code or recommendations.
Ensure AI-generated work is treated with the same rigor as a contribution from another engineer.
DevOps, Reliability, and Operations
Define requirements for build and deployment pipelines, environment parity, worker capacity, scheduler design, database topology, and credential management.
Maintain disciplined promotion across development, lab, staging, and production environments.
Ensure releases include application code, database migrations, configuration state, validation evidence, monitoring, and rollback readiness.
Establish observability for application performance, device operations, job execution, database health, and automation outcomes.
Diagnose incidents that span both software and network conditions.
Define operational service levels for the automation platform.
Report platform health using measures such as:
Device and site coverage
Polling and inventory freshness
Configuration-rendering success
Change and verification success
Job duration and failure rates
Open drift and compliance exceptions
Rollback frequency
Platform availability and reliability
Technical Leadership and Mentorship
Provide technical leadership without relying on formal reporting authority.
Establish architecture, coding, testing, deployment, and documentation standards.
Mentor junior engineers in software engineering and network automation fundamentals.
Mentor senior engineers through architecture reviews, design feedback, and complex problem solving.
Facilitate productive decisions between software engineering, network engineering, security, and operations teams.
Estimate work accurately, including engineering effort, lab validation, operational certification, and change-approval time.
Communicate technical roadmaps and architecture decisions clearly to engineering teams and senior leadership.
Explain complex risks and tradeoffs in language appropriate for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Required Qualifications
Eight or more years of relevant engineering experience, including substantial experience in both network engineering and software development.
A career foundation involving hands-on routing, switching, network configuration, troubleshooting, and production network operations.
Demonstrated progression from traditional network engineering into Python-based software engineering or network automation.
Strong production Python development experience, including services, APIs, background processing, automated testing, packaging, logging, and dependency management.
Demonstrated experience helping create a network automation platform, infrastructure automation system, or significant greenfield automation capability.
Hands-on experience with both Cisco and Juniper network environments.
Experience with Cisco IOS-XE or NX-OS and Juniper Junos.
Deep understanding of L2 and L3 networking, including VLANs, LACP, BGP, OSPF, IP addressing, subnetting, and out-of-band management.
Experience automating production network devices through NETCONF, vendor APIs, structured CLI, SSH, or comparable programmatic interfaces.
Experience with Ansible for network automation, including more than basic playbook execution.
Experience with at least one additional network automation framework or device library, such as Nornir, NAPALM, Netmiko, PyEZ, Scrapli, pyATS, or an equivalent technology.
SQL and relational data-modeling experience using MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or a comparable production database.
Experience designing, writing, and tuning queries against production schemas.
Demonstrated judgment involving live network change, including dry runs, configuration differences, staged rollout, verification, stop conditions, and rollback.
Experience with Git-based development, peer review, automated testing, and CI/CD.
Experience owning architecture for a major software or automation platform.
Experience leading design reviews, setting technical standards, mentoring engineers, and communicating technical roadmaps.
Ability to use AI-assisted development tools responsibly and independently validate generated code, tests, configurations, or recommendations.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Network Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience building a new network automation platform from an early-stage design, prototype, or blank repository.
Enterprise or data center zero-touch provisioning experience.
Configuration compliance, baseline-management, and drift-detection experience.
Experience integrating with NetBox, Nautobot, IPAM, CMDB, inventory, or another network source-of-truth platform.
Advanced Ansible experience, including custom modules, collections, execution environments, event-driven automation, or Ansible Automation Platform.
Production MariaDB experience.
Palo Alto PAN-OS or Arista EOS automation experience.
Firewall automation experience.
Experience with SNMP, syslog, streaming telemetry, or gNMI.
Experience with Docker, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or comparable build and deployment tooling.
Experience using containerlab, vJunos, EVE-NG, Cisco Modeling Labs, or another virtual network lab.
Data center, colocation, service-provider, or large enterprise network experience.
Experience automating out-of-band console or network-management infrastructure.
Experience designing AI-supported operational tools, agent systems, or machine-learning capabilities with measurable evaluation and human-approval controls.
Public technical contributions such as open-source code, conference presentations, technical articles, standards participation, mentoring, or community leadership.
Relevant certifications such as JNCIP, JNCIE, CCNP, CCIE, Cisco DevNet, PCNSE, or equivalent practical expertise.
Working Expectations
This is a highly hands-on individual-contributor position.
Approximately 99% of the role is focused on coding, architecture, platform design, testing, and technical delivery.
No future people-management responsibility is currently defined.
The role is not currently part of a formal on-call rotation.
Automated production changes outside normal business hours are uncommon.
The successful candidate must live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and meet the position's established workplace expectations.
What Success Looks Like
First 90 Days
Understand the current automation platform, network environment, source systems, and operational workflows.
Build strong working relationships with network engineering, software engineering, security, and operations teams.
Assess the current Python architecture, Ansible content, MariaDB schemas, deployment processes, testing practices, and major sources of technical debt.
Produce an initial architecture and phased roadmap for the next-generation automation platform.
Deliver an early technical capability, prototype, or modernization milestone that demonstrates the target architecture.
First Six Months
Establish platform architecture, coding, testing, and change-safety standards.
Deliver initial production capabilities for Cisco and Juniper automation.
Improve zero-touch provisioning, configuration rendering, validation, or state reconciliation.
Introduce repeatable lab and automated testing for high-risk device operations.
Demonstrate measurable improvements in maintainability, reliability, delivery speed, or network-change safety.
Establish responsible AI-assisted engineering and code-validation practices.
First Year
Deliver major components of the new network automation platform.
Expand safe, repeatable automation across network devices, sites, and vendors.
Reduce technical debt and reliance on fragile or manual workflows.
Improve automation coverage, data freshness, compliance visibility, change success, and rollback readiness.
Establish a sustainable engineering model that enables senior and junior team members to contribute safely and effectively.
Why Join Us?
This role offers the opportunity to combine deep network engineering expertise with modern software development. You will not be limited to maintaining scripts or administering an existing tool. You will help define and build the platform that automates a large, complex, multi-vendor production network.
If you have configured and troubleshot routers and switches, transitioned into serious Python development, and helped create production automation systems from the ground up, this role offers the scope and technical ownership to make a significant impact.
The targeted pay range for this position in the following location is / locations are:
United States - Dallas Infomart Office DAI : 136,000 - 204,000 USD / Annual
Our pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and location.The pay range shown is based on our compensation structure in place at the time of posting and may be updated periodically based on business needs. Individual pay is based on additional factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education and/or training.
The targeted pay range listed reflects the base pay only and does not include bonus, equity, or benefits. Employees are eligible for bonus, and equity may be offered depending on the position.
Equinix Benefits
As an employee, you become important to Equinix's success. We ensure all your benefits are in line with our core values: competitive, inclusive, sustainable, connected and efficient. We keep them competitive within the current marketplace to ensure we're providing you with the best package possible. So, wherever you are in your career and life, you'll be able to enhance your experience and bring your whole self to work.
Employee Assistance Program: An Employee Assistance program is available to all employees. US Benefits: - Insurance: You may enroll in health, life, disability and voluntary plans that are designed for you and your eligible family members. - Retirement: You and Equinix may contribute to a retirement plan to help you plan for your financial future. - Paid Time Off (PTO) and Paid Holidays: You will receive an accrued amount of PTO each pay period along with various paid holidays for you to rest and recharge. Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to specific plan or program terms.
Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability. If you are a qualified candidate and need assistance or an accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.
Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law.
We use artificial intelligence in our hiring process. Learn more here. This posting is for a backfill position, meaning it is to fill an existing vacancy within our organization.
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About the role
This is a Senior Level role in the Technology field (Software engineering) at Equinix, Inc. Senior roles usually expect substantial experience, ownership of results and often the ability to guide others.
We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.
Does the pay work here? (estimate)
Estimate for a wage earner: 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction (IRS), Social Security 6.2% up to $184,500, Medicare 1.45% (+0.9% above $200,000 single / $250,000 married), and a state rate you set; set your own state tax rate. It ignores credits, pre-tax deductions, local taxes and benefits. Sources: IRS: tax year 2026 inflation adjustments · SSA wage base per Federal Register notice 2025-19763.
How to prepare and behave
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The job is in Dallas, TX. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.
How Dallas compares. Among the 120 largest places in Texas, Dallas is #3 by population, #112 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #42 for remote work (#1 = most), #46 for college degrees (#1 = most). Its county, Dallas County, is #8 of 254 counties for average pay ($89,284).
The place in numbers
Dallas has 1,307,930 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 4.3% of the population of Texas. It covers 340 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 3,850 people per square mile. The median age is 33.4, 6% younger than the state median (33.4 against 35.6).
Housing
The median gross rent is $1,472 a month (rent plus utilities), 5% above the state median ($1,472 against $1,403). Over a year that is 25.0% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $320,700, which is 4.5 times the median household income ($70,518). 42.4% of households own their home, 32% below the state average (42.4% against 62.6%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.
Work and pay
The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metropolitan area has 4,049,800 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $51,440 a year, about the same as the national median ($51,440 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (490,190 jobs, median $47,080); transportation and material moving (423,430 jobs, median $44,570); management (379,320 jobs, median $128,140). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (1.4 times) and management (1.3 times), where the share of workers is above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($128,140) and computer and mathematical ($121,440). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of Dallas County was 4.2%. 68.6% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in Dallas County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.
Getting around
Among workers, 66.6% drive alone, 2.1% use public transit, 2.1% walk, 15.8% work from home. 14.1% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 17% below the state average (14.1% against 16.9%).
People and education
38.2% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 13% above the state share (38.2% against 33.8%). 23.4% of residents were born outside the United States, 33% above the state share (23.4% against 17.6%). The poverty rate is 16.7%, 21% above the state rate (16.7% against 13.8%).
Climate
The warmest month is Aug, averaging 86°F (30.1°C), and the coolest is Jan at 44°F (6.4°C). About 921 mm (36 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; May is the wettest month (116 mm) and Jul the driest (55 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.
Nearby cities to compare
Closest cities in this guide: Mesquite (11 miles, similar rent); Garland (11 miles, rent 11% higher); Farmers Branch (11 miles, rent 27% higher); Irving (13 miles, rent 10% higher). Rent differences are against Dallas; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.
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What is the Senior Software Engineer - Network Automation Architect job at Equinix, Inc?
A senior level role in technology (software engineering) listed 54 days ago. The full description is on this page and on The Muse.
Where is this job?
Dallas, TX. A remote or flexible location is listed; confirm with the employer which states are accepted.
How do I apply?
Use the "View this job and apply on The Muse" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.
How much does it pay?
The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.
What is the cost of living there?
Median rent in Dallas is $1,472 a month and median household income $70,518 (ACS 2020–2024).
How old is this listing?
It was posted on 2026-09-16 (54 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.
Are there similar jobs?
Yes: browse software engineering jobs in Texas.
Sources and terms
Job data: The Muse public API (listing dated 2026-09-16). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.
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