Staff Systems Engineer (Infrastructure Automation & Virtualization)
On-siteDublin, Leinster, Ireland or Cork, Munster, Ireland
Job Summary
Design and maintain infrastructure-as-code solutions using Terraform and Ansible to automate provisioning and lifecycle management of compute, storage, and networking resources across multi-environment deployments. Write Python and Bash automation scripts to reduce manual overhead, integrate tooling, and support CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions. Administer virtualization platforms including Nutanix, KVM, and VMware vSphere to ensure performance and availability targets are met. Monitor infrastructure health using Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog while leading root-cause analysis for incidents. Contribute to architecture discussions on automation, virtualization, and cloud integration, and mentor junior engineers through code review and knowledge transfer. This hands-on role operates within a globally distributed Infrastructure team at Cadence, focusing on hybrid cloud operations across AWS and Azure.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent professional experience
- 5–8 years of experience in infrastructure engineering with a strong emphasis on automation and infrastructure-as-code
- Expert-level proficiency in Terraform: writing modular, reusable HCL configurations for multi-environment deployments
- Solid hands-on experience with Ansible for configuration management, idempotent playbook development, and role-based automation
- Proficiency in Python for automation scripting, tooling development, and API integration; Bash scripting for operational tasks
- Production-level experience with at least two of the following virtualization platforms: Nutanix (AHV/Prism/AOS), KVM/QEMU, or VMware vSphere/ESXi
- Familiarity with CI/CD platforms (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins) and GitOps workflows for infrastructure automation
- Foundational networking knowledge: VLANs, routing, DNS, load balancing, and firewall rules in virtualized environments
- Experience with GitHub or GitHub Enterprise for version control, branching strategies, and pull-request-based workflows
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a track record of producing clear technical documentation, runbooks, and architecture diagrams
- Some flexibility in working hours may be required for collaboration with global teams
Desired Qualifications
- Working knowledge of AWS or Azure, including compute, networking, IAM, and hybrid connectivity (VPN, Direct Connect, or ExpressRoute)
- Experience with policy-as-code frameworks such as Open Policy Agent (OPA) or Sentinel
- Familiarity with container orchestration platforms (Kubernetes, Helm) in infrastructure contexts
- Exposure to infrastructure security tooling and compliance frameworks (CIS Benchmarks, NIST, SOC 2)
- Contributions to open-source infrastructure tooling or internal developer platforms
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