Senior Infrastructure Automation Engineer (Ansible)

Company Description Software Mind develops solutions that make an impact for companies around the globe. Tech giants & unicorns, transformative projects, emerging technologies and limitless opportunities – these are a few words that describe an average day for us. Building cross-functional engineering teams that take ownership and crave more means we’re always on the lookout for talented people who bring passion and creativity to every project. Our culture embraces openness, acts with respect, shows grit & guts and combines employment with enjoyment. Job Description Project – the aim you’ll have We are looking for a Senior Infrastructure Automation Engineer to help build an automation practice for a leading IT infrastructure provider in the Netherlands. Automation is already being done, but it has grown in several directions at once - different approaches, different standards and different repository layouts running in parallel. A large part of this role is bringing that together into one practice the whole team works with. You will join a 12+ person Polish engineering team responsible for maintaining the client's Linux and Windows estate and for delivering transformation projects on it. The environment carries a significant legacy footprint, built up over years of operations. At the same time we are building a completely new platform based on OpenStack, so the automation you create will cover both: keeping the existing estate running, and making sure the new platform is automated from day one rather than years later. You will also have a software development team as a help, so when something needs to be properly engineered rather than scripted around, you will not be solving it alone. Your first deliverable is continuous patching across Linux and Windows - moving the client from scheduled manual patching cycles to an automated, continuously running process. From there the practice expands into deployment automation, configuration management and process automation across the estate. Role – How You’ll Contribute Writing Ansible automation - playbooks, roles, modules and collections - this is the core, day-to-day work of the roleHelp shape the automation practice: standards, repository structure and code review process, worked out together with the teamPatch management automationDeployment automationConfiguration managementSystems and process automationProject-driven infrastructure transformations - bring automation into the transformation projects the team delivers, so that what is built new is automated from the startSupport, configure and manage the automation platformAutomation-related code review and maintenance across the teamCI/CD configuration and management for automation codeDefine and maintain the inventory and source of truth the automation runs againstIntroduce testing for automation code, so changes can be released to a production estate with confidenceWork with engineers maintaining the estate to identify what should be automated next, and in what orderShare knowledge with the team so the practice is something everyone can work withProduce and maintain the technical documentation that makes the practice usable by others Qualifications Expectations – the experience you need Advanced knowledge and experience in using, configuring and maintaining automation platforms, preferably AAP/AWXUnderstanding best practices for writing and maintaining Ansible code and repositoriesDeveloping Ansible playbooks, roles and modules; maintaining Ansible collectionsUsing Ansible to manage systems and processes at scaleAdvanced understanding of IaC principlesPractical experience with patch management across both Linux and Windows systemsExperience working across various Linux distributionsProgramming skills, preferably PythonSolid Git and version control practice applied to automation codeExperience creating and maintaining technical documentationEnglish at C1 level - the working language with the client, including direct contact with client-side engineers and stakeholders Additional Skills – The Edge You Have OpenStack - we are building a new platform on it, so experience here is a strong plusExperience consolidating scattered automation into a single, consistent practiceExperience setting technical standards and getting a team to adopt themGood understanding of virtualization conceptsPuppet - part of the current estate, and consolidating it into Ansible is within the scope of this roleExperience migrating from another configuration management tool to AnsibleTesting frameworks for Ansible (e.g. Molecule)Observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana)IPAM, IAMBasic networking, system firewalls, storageRed Hat / Ansible certifications Additional Information What We Offer Flexible and remote cooperation options International projects with leading global clients Travels related to international projects Non-corporate atmosphere Access* to language classesAccess* to knowledge-sharing initiatives Access* to private healthcare and life insurance Access* to multisport card The availability and terms of individual benefits may vary depending on the chosen form of cooperation.#WORLD