Automation Engineer

Company Description: Nexthop AI is a team of industry-leading professionals with deep hardware and software expertise spanning silicon, systems, network operations and cloud development, dedicated to building innovative, bleeding-edge solutions for large-scale AI deployments. The team culture thrives on collaboration, creativity and fun while delivering foundational technologies for next-generation AI infrastructure.

Job Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and own large-scale test automation frameworks for network devices using both open source and custom test frameworks, covering both physical and container-based topologies.

• Architect and implement CI/CD pipelines that automatically deploy container topologies, execute test plans, and publish test reports and logs.

• Develop and maintain configuration workflows and schemas, integrating with the NOS agnostic configuration services to generate, validate, and apply complex configurations across multi-DUT environments.

• Automate end-to-end network feature and platform testing (L2/L3, BGP/EVPN, QoS, ACLs, platform health).

• Integrate and automate traffic generators (IXIA / IXIA‑c, Spirent, Snappi/OTG) to validate forwarding behavior, convergence, and performance as part of regression and release test suites.

• Establish and enforce automation best practices for test structure, logging, cleanup, reusability, and reliability across multiple engineering teams.

• Collaborate closely with Software and Hardware Engineering teams to design test strategies for new features, platform bring-up, and regression suites; provide early feedback on design from an automation and testability perspective.

• Use well defined metrics to track test execution, quality trends, and contribution impact; define and report automation metrics such as test coverage, CI/CD pipeline efficiency, and automation adoption rates.

• Mentor and guide other engineers in Python development, network test automation, and modern DevOps practices, helping to grow a strong automation culture across Nexthop AI.

Qualifications:

We’re seeking individuals who thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative startup and possess exceptional problem-solving skills and a strong aptitude for taking initiative, learning, and driving high-quality automation. Additionally we value individuals who practice and instill empathy for both internal and external users of our test infrastructure. The following skills are essential for this role:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering or a related field.

• Minimum 15 years of experience in roles focused on test automation, SDET, DevOps, or network engineering, with significant responsibility for designing and operating automated test systems.

• Expert-level Python skills, with deep experience building and maintaining pytest-based frameworks (fixtures, plugins, parametrization, markers) and shared test utilities.

• Proficient in networking protocols and technologies such as BGP, OSPF, EVPN, VxLAN, MPLS, and modern data center architectures (Clos/leaf–spine, ECMP, overlay/underlay).

• Extensive hands-on experience with network operating systems (NOS) such as SONiC, IOS, IOS‑XR, EOS, Junos, and similar, including automated configuration, show/parse cycles, and debugging.

• Experience testing and automating SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) or comparable open-network NOS; familiarity with config_db, YANG models, and SAI is highly desirable.

• Proven ability to design and operate network test frameworks and to effectively debug and troubleshoot complex networking and system issues discovered by automated tests.

• Significant experience with traffic generators (IXIA / IXIA‑c, Spirent, or similar) and programmatic control via APIs (Snappi/OTG or vendor SDKs), including automation of flows, sessions, and KPI validation.

• Strong background in containerization and virtual topologies, including Docker, containerlab, Linux networking, and infrastructure-as-code patterns to describe and deploy test environments.

• Demonstrated experience with CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, etc.), including building, optimizing, and maintaining pipelines for automated testing and reporting.

• Hands-on experience with YAML/JSON configuration management, schema design, and integration with config translation/validation tools.

• Significant experience in DevOps, Network Operations, or Network Engineering within a cloud provider or enterprise-level team, with a strong emphasis on automation and reliability.

Why Us:

Our company bolsters all the advantages of working at a startup with the expertise of a seasoned team who have successfully built startups into thriving companies. Here you’ll have the unique opportunity to collaborate and learn from top-tier engineers, while still working on mission critical projects. If you are excited to learn, solve hard problems at the forefront of computer systems, and be a part of shaping a burgeoning company, this is the place for you.