Infrastructure Automation Engineer - Linux

Location: Whiteley, PO15 (hybrid working - est 2-3 days per week onsite)

Duration: 6 month initial contract

Inside IR35

Role details:

NATS (National Air Traffic Services) are looking for an Infrastructure Automation Engineer to join their Simulation Services team on a contract basis NATS Simulation Services supports the training and competency of Air Traffic Control Officers by providing simulation environments to military and commercial customers. The team is engaged in a modernisation programme to revamp their infrastructure and deployment processes.

Overview:
The role is centred around infrastructure automation and build activities, rather than design or architecture work. You will primarily focus on uplifting, maintaining, and extending existing automation used to build and deploy Windows and Linux systems across both physical and virtual environments. The ideal candidate will have a robust background in Linux and working knowledge of Windows, as much of the current environment and tooling is written in PowerShell.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Creating and maintaining repeatable, reusable automation code for provisioning and configuring both physical and virtual infrastructure.
• Developing, enhancing, and testing existing automation, as well as supporting deployment activities across multiple environments.
• Hands-on involvement in physical client and server build-outs, providing technical support and guidance during installation and deployment activities.
• Defect resolution, ongoing documentation updates (including build guides and knowledge articles), and contributing to low-level design.
• Working collaboratively with the wider team to establish and improve build standards and best practices.

Day to Day Responsibilities:

• Build Automation & Defect Resolution: Develop, enhance, and maintain infrastructure build and deployment automation. Investigate and resolve defects within build and provisioning workflows.
• Documentation: Create and maintain technical documentation, including build guides and knowledge articles, and peer-review project documentation.
• Provisioning & Deployment: Support deployment activities across physical and virtual environments, including bootstrapping bare-metal servers and virtual machines. Provide technical guidance, troubleshoot deployment issues, debug failures, and identify root causes of operational problems.

Skills Required:

• Experience creating repeatable, reusable automation to deploy, configure, and maintain infrastructure, primarily using PowerShell and scripting-based approaches.
• Exposure to configuration management and automation tooling such as Ansible.
• Experience using Git for version control, managing code changes, and collaborating with other engineers.
• Strong administration skills in Linux environments, with a working knowledge of windows.
• Experience with bare-metal provisioning and virtual machine build and provisioning.
• Strong troubleshooting skills for diagnosing and resolving issues across infrastructure, automation code, and build processes.
• Strong documentation skills for creating and maintaining build guides and knowledge articles.
• Ability to work collaboratively across multiple teams and adapt to changing priorities.

Key Technologies & Tools:

• Ansible: Automation and configuration management.
• PowerShell: Scripting and automation for Windows build, configuration, and deployment.
• Linux Scripting: Bash, Shell, or other scripting languages for Linux-based systems.
• Virtualisation: Experience provisioning and managing virtual machines, ideally using Hyper-V.
• Provisioning: Bare-metal provisioning and OS deployment tooling, including PXE-based build processes.
• Active Directory: Administration including users, groups, and Group Policy.
• SMB/NFS File Server Management: Administration and management of SMB and NFS file systems.
• WSUS (Windows Server Update Services): Management of updates and patches across Windows environments.
• DNS (Domain Name System): Configuration and troubleshooting of DNS services.
• SQL: Working with SQL databases, including queries, maintenance, and administration.
• Monitoring: Experience with Zabbix or other monitoring tools for system and network health.
• Antivirus Management: Knowledge of managing antivirus solutions, including McAfee or other enterprise-level AV software.
• Enterprise Infrastructure Management: Experience working within large, multi-site on-premises environments with standardised security and access controls.

If you are an experienced Infrastructure Automation Engineer with a focus on Linux and are looking for a new contract opportunity, we would love to hear from you. Apply now to join our client's dynamic and innovative team in Whiteley.