Storage Automation Engineer

Job Description

We are seeking a senior NetApp Resident Engineer to embed with the Storage Systems Group (SSG) and accelerate automation and AI-enabled operations across a large multi-site ONTAP fleet. This role pairs deep NetApp ONTAP expertise with hands-on Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Ansible) skills and practical experience applying AI/ML tooling to storage operations — including anomaly detection, capacity forecasting, and AI-assisted troubleshooting. The resident engineer will work directly with SSG leadership and engineers on active initiatives spanning fleet lifecycle management and ServiceNow ITOM/AIOps integration. Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain Terraform modules and Ansible playbooks/roles for ONTAP provisioning, SVM/volume lifecycle management, SnapMirror/SnapCenter operations, and fleet-wide configuration drift remediation.
• Partner with SSG engineers to extend existing automation (e.g., self-service backup/restore workflows, capacity reclamation scripting) into standardized, version-controlled IaC pipelines.
• Apply AI/ML capabilities — including NetApp BlueXP/AIOps tooling, anomaly detection, and LLM-assisted diagnostics — to reduce time-to-resolution and to support predictive capacity and health management across the fleet.
• Support integration work between ONTAP telemetry, Metabase/Snowflake reporting, and ServiceNow ITOM Event Management webhook pipelines.
• Support NetApp snapshot and clone technology (Snapshot, FlexClone) automation and NFS datastore lifecycle management across the fleet.
• Document runbooks, automation architecture, and operational procedures; provide knowledge transfer and upskilling to SSG engineers on IaC and AI-assisted operations practices. Required Qualifications
• 8+ years of experience with NetApp ONTAP administration in enterprise, multi-cluster environments (SVMs, FlexVols/FlexGroups, SnapMirror, SnapCenter, CIFS/NFS).
• 3+ years hands-on experience writing and maintaining Terraform for infrastructure provisioning, including NetApp/ONTAP or adjacent storage/infrastructure providers.
• 3+ years hands-on experience with Ansible for configuration management and operational automation (playbooks, roles, idempotent task design).
• Demonstrated experience applying AI/ML or LLM-based tooling to infrastructure or storage operations (e.g., predictive analytics, anomaly detection, AI-assisted scripting or troubleshooting, AI-output verification practices).
• Strong scripting ability in Python and/or PowerShell for automation glue code, API integration, and reporting.
• Working knowledge of REST API-based automation against ONTAP and adjacent platforms.
• Experience with version control and CI/CD practices (Git-based workflows) for infrastructure code.
• Excellent written communication skills for runbook and architecture documentation. Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with NFS-backed datastore performance tuning (NFSv3 vs. NFSv4.1/4.2) across virtualized environments.
• Familiarity with Dell PPDM/Data Domain, StorageGRID, or other backup/DR platforms.
• Experience integrating storage/infrastructure telemetry into ITSM/ITOM platforms (ServiceNow Event Management, PagerDuty).
• NetApp certifications (NCDA, NCIE) and/or HashiCorp Terraform Associate certification.
• Prior experience in a vendor-resident or embedded consulting engagement model. Engagement Details
• Contract engagement placed by NetApp to work embedded within Cox Automotive's SSG team.
• Remote/hybrid; occasional coordination across U.S. data center sites as fleet work requires.
• Success will be measured by automation coverage delivered (Terraform/Ansible modules in production use), reduction in manual operational toil, and measurable AI-assisted improvements to incident response or capacity planning.