Clarification from the agency

This announcement is open to current applicants who live in the Washington, DC commuting area and/or federal judiciary employees nationwide.

The Enterprise Operations Center (EOC) Infrastructure Operations Division is seeking an adaptable and motivated Network Automation Engineer to join our dynamic team in the Network Operations Center (NOC). In this role you will be responsible for looking for ways to automate our everyday network tasks, repetitive processes, and recurring reports to improve our network service availability and visibility of services within the NOC. Must have strong experience with networking configuration, automation, and orchestration of devices within Internet Data Center (IDC), Public/Private and Government Cloud (i.e., GCP, Azure, AWS, and Oracle), and WAN/LAN environments. You will be responsible for network engineering support services, including but not limited to installing and configuring network equipment, monitoring network infrastructure health, patch management, and supporting connectivity to other networks on premises and in the cloud.

Your expertise in network automation tools and programming languages will be applied to optimize network operations through automation. As a Network Automation Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in crafting outstanding network automation solutions to improve efficiency, reliability, and increased visibility within our infrastructure-as a full-stack engineer, capable of serving in many roles supporting the NOC. You will be involved in developing scripts and full-stack automation to interface with tools and systems of record APIs and read/write data across a wide array of network and security technologies within the NOC. This position focuses on automation and orchestration of core network infrastructure, cloud networking, WAN and Edge infrastructure.

Duties of the position include but are not limited to:

1. Architecting and implementing intelligent automation solutions to seamlessly integrate network infrastructure with diverse platforms and services, driving operational efficiency.
2. Collaborating closely with various teams and management to define strategic automation initiatives aligned with business objectives.
3. Leading the design, development, and maintenance of sophisticated automation scripts and workflows to simplify network provisioning, configuration management, and monitoring tasks.
4. Creating, modifying, and automating operational reports.
5. Providing expert-level support in diagnosing and resolving intricate issues related to network automation workflows and scripts.
6. Monitoring network performance and assist in troubleshooting network-related issues.
7. Collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure the seamless integration of automation and orchestration tools into the network infrastructure.
8. Identifying gaps in current technology processes and recommend changes.
9. Driving continuous improvement by optimizing existing automation processes and documenting workflows comprehensively.
10. Staying up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices related to network automation and orchestration to incorporate new technologies and methodologies into existing workflows.
11. Developing methodologies and operational processes for continuous monitoring of the network to ensure that all EOC managed systems are performing within expected tolerances.
12. Addressing security related issues for network access and devices.
13. Conducting network tests and monitoring of network integrity, performance, and security to identify service issues and develop plans for remediation.
14. Maintaining and supporting network equipment and software systems, including firewalls, switches, WAPs & WLAN controllers, VOIP Infrastructure and other network related hardware and software on premise and in the cloud.
15. Updating and improving skills and networking knowledge through training and self-study.
16. Identifying network problems and resolving in accordance with the EOC incident and problem management plan, policies, and procedures.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience is demonstrated experience in ALL of the following:

• Hands-on experience in enterprise networking with a strong focus on network automation;
• Experience with Linux Operating System environment;
• Advanced familiarity with Python, Ansible, or other tools used for network automation; and
• Strong software development skills with an emphasis on Python or JavaScript programming.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.