Automation Engineer

Position Title: Automation Engineer

About the Job 

The Automation Engineer builds the automation that removes manual, repetitive work from the running of enterprise infrastructure and platform services. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on operational automation: provisioning, configuration, patching, routine operational tasks, and automated remediation.

Working within an established automation practice and alongside senior engineers, the Automation Engineer takes defined automation requirements and delivers reliable, well-tested, reusable automation. The measure of the work is straightforward: fewer manual steps, fewer tickets, and fewer repeat interventions by human operators.

The role complements the DevOps Platform Engineer, who builds the CI/CD and developer tooling platform. This role concentrates on automating infrastructure and operational activity across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and the on-premise estate.

What you will be doing:

Infrastructure and Operations Automation

• Build and maintain automation that provisions, configures, and decommissions infrastructure across cloud and on-premises environments.
• Automate routine operational tasks including patching, certificate renewal, backup verification, log rotation, account administration, and service restarts.
• Convert manual runbooks into tested, repeatable, parameterized automation.
• Reduce ticket-based provisioning by delivering self-service automation that colleagues can run safely themselves.

Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code

• Develop and maintain Ansible playbooks, roles, and collections, executed through Ansible Automation Platform.
• Build and maintain Terraform configurations and modules for repeatable infrastructure provisioning.
• Keep environments consistent by detecting and correcting configuration drift.

Event-Driven and Self-Healing Operations

• Build event-driven automation that responds to monitoring alerts and platform events without human intervention.
• Implement auto-remediation for known, well-understood failure conditions using Event-Driven Ansible and equivalent tooling.
• Work with observability data from Datadog, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk to identify candidates for automation.

Technical Craft and Engineering Practices

• Write clear, tested, peer-reviewed automation code in Python, PowerShell, and Bash.
• Manage all automation in Git, following the team's branching, review, and release practices.
• Handle credentials and secrets through approved services such as HashiCorp Vault and CyberArk, never in code or configuration.
• Use AI-assisted engineering tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code to accelerate development, testing, and documentation, applying appropriate review and technical judgement.
• Document what each automation does, how to run it, and how it fails.

Collaboration and Ways of Working

• Work within an agile team with a shared backlog and defined customers.
• Take direction and technical guidance from senior engineers, and actively seek feedback and code review.
• Partner with infrastructure, cloud, and operations colleagues to understand the manual work worth automating.
• Contribute to incident response and follow-up actions where automation forms part of the remedy.

Required

• Demonstrated capability in infrastructure, operations, or automation engineering, typically gained across two to four years of professional experience.
• Practical scripting ability in at least one of Python, PowerShell, or Bash.
• Hands-on experience with configuration management or automation tooling, ideally Ansible.
• Working knowledge of Linux or Windows server administration.
• Familiarity with at least one major public cloud, such as Azure or AWS.
• Experience using Git for version control.
• A methodical approach to troubleshooting and a genuine dislike of repetitive manual work.
• Clear written and verbal communication in English.

Preferred

• Experience with Terraform or another Infrastructure as Code tool.
• Experience with Ansible Automation Platform, AWX, or Event-Driven Ansible.
• Exposure to containers, Kubernetes, or CI/CD pipelines.
• Exposure to observability tooling such as Datadog, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, or Splunk.
• Experience working within a validated, GxP, or otherwise regulated environment, including awareness of data-protection obligations such as GDPR.
• Certifications such as Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation, HashiCorp Terraform Associate, or AWS or Azure associate level.
• A bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, information technology, or a related discipline.

• Automation-first mindset and low tolerance for repetitive work
• Attention to detail and care with production systems
• Curiosity and willingness to ask questions
• Openness to feedback and coaching
• Reliability and follow-through on commitments
• Strong appetite for continuous learning

• Volume of manual operational tasks automated
• Reduced ticket volume for routine and repeatable requests
• Increased use of self-service automation by colleagues
• Reduced configuration drift and manual configuration changes
• Reduced repeat incidents through automated remediation
• Steady growth in technical depth and delivery independence

Better is out there. Better medications, better outcomes, better science. But progress doesn’t happen without people – people from different backgrounds, in different locations, doing different roles, all united by one thing: a desire to make miracles happen. So, let’s be those people.

At Sanofi, we provide equal opportunities to all regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, ability or gender identity.

Watch our ALL IN video and check out our Diversity Equity and Inclusion actions at sanofi.com!