Network & Infrastructure Tooling / Automation Specialist/ Architect - freelance - hybrid, London, UK

Senior technologist with deep expertise in designing, building, and governing network and infrastructure tooling platforms that enable scalable, reliable, and compliant enterprise environments. Proven experience defining automation strategy, control frameworks, and operating models that abstract complex network and infrastructure estates into consumable, repeatable services. Strong background in financial-services environments, with a focus on resilience, auditability, and operational excellence. The ideal candidate is proactive, able to be detail-oriented when required, and comfortable operating in regulated environments.

Key responsibilities

• Infrastructure Tooling Architecture & Strategy: Define tooling strategy and reference architectures aligned with platform engineering and DevOps principles. Design modular, API-driven tooling layers that decouple intent, policy, and execution across network and infrastructure domains. Establish standards for tool selection, integration, versioning, and lifecycle management. Align tooling strategy with regulatory, risk, and operational resilience requirements.
• Network Automation & Infrastructure as Code: Design and build automation using Python, Ansible, and declarative models to enable repeatable, low-risk change. Translate high-level design and policy into validated templates, pipelines, and reusable automation components. Implement guardrails including pre-change validation, compliance checks, drift detection, and automated rollback. Enable self-service infrastructure consumption models while maintaining strong governance and control.
• Cisco ACI & Policy-Driven Platforms: Design tooling and automation for Cisco ACI fabrics, tenants, policies, and multisite or multi-pod environments. Integrate Cisco ACI with IPAM, CMDB, CI/CD pipelines, and security platforms. Automate APIC operations, configuration lifecycle management, and consistency validation across environments. Use ACI policy models as part of a broader infrastructure abstraction strategy.
• Routing, WAN & Platform Integration: Automate deployment and optimisation of BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, and hybrid WAN designs. Build tooling to support large-scale migration activities with minimal operational risk. Integrate SD-WAN, MPLS, and cloud connectivity into unified operational and observability platforms. Enable traffic engineering, QoS, and policy enforcement through code-driven workflows.
• Observability, Operations & Resilience: Develop automation for fault detection, root cause analysis, and remediation. Integrate telemetry, logs, and metrics into observability platforms. Support SRE-style practices including error budgets, reliability metrics, and continuous feedback loops. Improve MTTR and operational consistency through standardised tooling and workflows.
• Governance, Compliance & Secure Design: Embed security, segmentation, and compliance controls into automation pipelines. Ensure tooling supports audit trails, approval workflows, and evidence collection. Design tooling for highly regulated environments, particularly financial services. Collaborate with risk, security, and compliance teams to align tooling with enterprise policy.
• Leadership, Documentation & Enablement: Define roadmaps and investment cases for infrastructure tooling platforms. Produce clear documentation covering architecture, automation standards, and operating models. Mentor engineers and establish best practices for automation-first networking. Communicate effectively with stakeholders across engineering, security, and management.

Requirements

• Competencies: Architectural Rigor, Cross-Team Influence, Operational Excellence, Innovation & Forward Thinking.
• Technical requirements: Network Automation & IaC: Python, Ansible, Infrastructure as Code, Declarative automation models, API-driven tooling, REST APIs, CI/CD pipelines, Versioning, Drift detection, Compliance checks, Automated rollback. Cisco ACI & Policy-Driven Infrastructure: Cisco ACI, APIC automation, ACI multisite, ACI multipod, Policy-driven infrastructure, Intent-based networking, Programmable infrastructure. Routing, WAN & Connectivity: BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, Hybrid WAN, SD-WAN, MPLS, Traffic engineering, QoS, ExpressRoute, Direct Connect. Observability & Operations: Observability platforms, Telemetry, Logs, Metrics, Fault detection automation, Root cause analysis, Remediation automation, SRE practices, Reliability metrics. Platform, Cloud & Service Integration: IPAM integration, CMDB integration, Platform engineering, DevOps, Lifecycle management, Cloud networking, AWS, Azure, Data centre networking. Security & Compliance: SASE, Zero Trust, Identity-driven segmentation, Network security controls, Audit trails, Approval workflows, Evidence collection.

Advantageous: Experience in regulated environments, especially financial services. Knowledge of integration between CMDB or ITSM platforms and network management tooling. Familiarity with cloud-native observability tools. Scripting for reporting, audit, and analysis.