Network Engineer

Job Title

Lead Automation Network Engineer - Load Balancing & Application Delivery

Job Location

Columbus, OH or Charlotte, NC

Employment Type

Contingent / Contract (No Conversion)

Work Arrangement

Hybrid / On-site as required

Job Summary

The Lead Automation Network Engineer - Load Balancing is a senior-level technical role responsible for the design, automation, and operational excellence of large-scale application delivery and load balancing platforms. This position focuses on building resilient, scalable, and secure Layer 4-7 traffic management solutions that support internet-facing, B2B, and enterprise applications within a regulated enterprise environment.

You will act as a technical authority, partnering across network, security, and application teams to drive automation, standardization, and reliability across global infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Design

Lead the architecture and design of enterprise load balancing and application delivery solutions across data centers and cloud-adjacent environments.

Define scalable, highly available traffic management strategies aligned with application performance, resiliency, and business continuity requirements.

Serve as a subject matter expert for Layer 4-7 technologies including load balancing, SSL/TLS, DNS-based traffic steering, and health monitoring. Automation & Engineering

Design and implement automation-first solutions using Python, Ansible, and Infrastructure-as-Code principles.

Develop standardized, repeatable workflows for provisioning, configuration, scaling, and lifecycle management of load balancing services.

Utilize authoritative data sources and Source-of-Truth (SoT) models to ensure configuration accuracy, compliance, and reliability.

Drive automated testing, validation, and orchestration to reduce deployment risk and improve delivery speed. Operations & Reliability

Ensure high availability, performance, and resilience of application delivery platforms supporting critical business applications.

Proactively identify capacity, performance, and resiliency risks and lead remediation efforts.

Perform failover testing, health validation, and certificate lifecycle management.

Troubleshoot and resolve complex load balancing and traffic management incidents with clear impact analysis. Security & Compliance

Implement and maintain security controls including TLS policies, WAF integrations, and access controls.

Design compliant, hardened solutions in alignment with regulatory and enterprise security requirements.

Collaborate with network and application security teams throughout the service lifecycle. Collaboration & Leadership

Act as a technical advisor to engineering, operations, and business stakeholders.

Mentor engineers on load balancing technologies, automation best practices, and operational standards.

Produce and maintain technical design documentation, runbooks, and automation frameworks.

Participate in formal change management and governance processes. Required Qualifications

5+ years of experience in Network Engineering or equivalent experience through work, education, training, or military service.

5+ years of experience building automation for network or application delivery platforms using Python and Ansible.

Hands-on experience with load balancing and application delivery technologies (Layer 4/7).

Experience using Git and version-controlled workflows.

Strong understanding of network data, data modeling, and Source-of-Truth concepts. Preferred Qualifications

Experience in large financial services or regulated enterprise environments.

Experience with load balancer automation, orchestration, and automated testing frameworks.

Familiarity with ServiceNow, Nautobot, or similar network data management platforms.

Experience with API-driven infrastructure (REST, GraphQL).

Knowledge of Jinja, JSON, YAML, YANG, and related templating or data technologies.

Exposure to CI/CD tools and workflows (Git, Jenkins, Jira).

Strong technical documentation and communication skills. Business Impact

This role is critical to the modernization of enterprise application delivery platforms and supports large-scale application migrations, data center modernization, and partner connectivity initiatives. Reliable and automated load balancing solutions directly impact application availability, performance, and transformation timelines.