AI-Enabled Infrastructure Automation Engineer
JOB SUMMARY:
The AI-Enabled Infrastructure Automation Engineer designs, develops, and implements automation solutions to enhance the efficiency and reliability of Southern Company's IT infrastructure. This role will focus on automating the provisioning and management of servers, storage, and networking across VMware and physical environments, improving efficiency, scalability, and reliability.
JOB REQUIREMENTS:
- BS/BA in Computer Science or MIS is desired or equivalent work experience
- 7+ years of hands-on platform, DevOps, or infrastructure engineering experience, with deep production work in at least one of Terraform or Ansible (ideally both) and strong Git-based workflow fluency.
- At least 6 months of substantial daily use of AI coding assistants on infrastructure work, shipping Terraform modules, Ansible roles, or pipeline code with AI in the loop.
- Working knowledge of Python or C# sufficient to build integration tooling, MCP servers, etc.
- Demonstrated ability to teach and evangelize — this role is intended as a force multiplier for our Computing Infrastructure Automation team as well as coders within our various Computing Services departments.
- Clear written communication; comfort producing reference documentation and internal playbooks.
- Pragmatic judgment about where AI should and shouldn’t be leveraged.
- Demonstrated knowledge of automation technologies and processes
- Basic knowledge of security policies
- Working knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems
- Background in VMware Cloud Foundation and Hyper-V virtualization technologies
- Experience with enterprise storage systems (Dell EMC)
- Familiarity with enterprise networking (Cisco)
- Proficiency with scripting (Ansible, PowerShell, Python, Bash, REST APIs)
- Hands-on experience with automation platforms (Ansible Tower/AWX, vRealize Automation, Terraform for VMware
- Experience with source control systems (e.g., Git, Azure DevOps, GitHub) in enterprise environments
- Demonstrate strong communication and influence skills to encourage adoption of automation standards
- General knowledge of Southern Company's core business
- General knowledge of information technologies (those currently used within the system and new technologies)
- Ability to effectively organize tasks, manage multiple priorities/details, meet schedules, and deliver on customer commitments
- Ability to negotiate with and influence others across organizations within the IT organization.
- Ability to build relationships and work in a team atmosphere as well as work independently
- Ability to provide and accept feedback
- Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills
- Professional oral and written communication skills
- Understanding of how their activities impact function budget
Nice to have
- Prior experience building internal developer platforms, paved roads, or self-service catalogs (internal CLIs, Terraform module registries, Ansible content collections).
- Hands-on MCP server development and/or other AI tool integration work.
- Experience in a regulated industry (utilities, financial services, healthcare, defense) where auditability and change control are first-class concerns.
- Exposure to policy-as-code frameworks and their integration into PR workflows.
MAJOR JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Configure, tune, and maintain our AI coding assistant stack (Claude Code, Copilot, or equivalents) providing our coders with consistent, high-quality output aligned to our standards.
- Author and maintain rules files, system prompts, and context packages that teach the AI assistants our Terraform module conventions, Ansible role patterns, Git workflows, security and compliance guardrails.
- Design and operate MCP servers as appropriate.
- Build a shared, version-controlled library of prompts, agent workflows, and slash commands for the recurring tasks each department faces — module generation, legacy-to-IaC conversion, pull request review, runbook updates, and drift triage.
- Automate provisioning and lifecycle management of VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, bare-metal servers, and other computing infrastructure
- Develop scripts, workflows, and playbooks for storage provisioning, SAN/NAS automation, and backup integration
- Automate network device configuration and monitoring using tools like Ansible, Python, or vendor APIs
- Implement and manage configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef) for OS and middleware automation
- Collaborate with stakeholders to understand diverse automation needs and advocate for unified solutions
- Provide guidance and training to peers on effective branching strategies, versioning, and code review processes
- Integrate automation workflows with ITSM and CMDB systems
- Build and maintain automated patching, compliance, and reporting frameworks
- Optimize infrastructure utilization and reduce manual intervention in operational tasks