Ansible Developer

Job Description:
Role: Ansible Developer

Experience: 8-10 years

Location: Toronto
- Hybrid: 3 days a week required in office

An experienced Ansible Engineer to lead the end to end migration of existing Puppet-based automation to an Ansible-based automation framework for RHEL virtual machines. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Linux systems engineering, automation tooling, configuration management, and infrastructure-as-code practices.

Key Responsibilities:

• Migration & Automation Engineering
• Assess existing Puppet configurations, including manifests, classes, modules, Hiera data, and deployment workflows.
• Design and develop equivalent Ansible playbooks, roles, inventories, templates, and supporting automation structures.
• Define a comprehensive migration roadmap from Puppet to Ansible, ensuring a smooth transition with minimal downtime.
• Automate provisioning, configuration, patching, compliance workflows, and application deployments for RHEL virtual machines.

Optimization & Best Practices

• Optimize Ansible content for idempotency, modularity, reusability, and enterprise standards.
• Integrate Ansible with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Git Lab), enabling automated provisioning and updates.
• Collaborate with security teams to implement system hardening, secrets management, and compliance policies (e.g., CIS benchmarks).

Troubleshooting & Operations

• Troubleshoot issues related to Ansible execution, module failures, SSH connectivity, inventory management, and VM configuration.
• Oversee lifecycle management for RHEL VMs across virtualized or cloud environments.
• Documentation & Knowledge Transfer
• Document migration steps, automation architecture, workflows, runbooks, and operational processes.
• Provide training and knowledge transfer to internal engineering and operations teams.

Required

Skills & Experience:

Technical Expertise

• 5–10 years of experience in Linux/Unix system administration (preferred: RHEL).
• Strong hands-on experience with Ansible, including:

Playbooks

Roles

Inventories

Ansible Vault

YAML

Ansible modules

• Experience with Puppet, including manifests, modules, classes, Hiera, and deployment workflows.
• Proven experience migrating configurations or workloads from Puppet to Ansible.
• Strong scripting skills in Python, Bash, or Shell.

Infrastructure & Tools

• Experience managing RHEL VMs in virtualized or cloud environments.
• Proficiency with Git version control and CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Git Lab, or Azure Dev Ops.
• Deep understanding of configuration management, automation best practices, and Infrastructure‑as‑Code (IaC).
• Familiarity with security hardening and compliance frameworks (e.g., CIS benchmarks).

Soft Skills

• Strong problem-solving and debugging abilities.
• Ability to work independently and lead migration initiatives.
• Excellent documentation and communication skills.

Essential Skills

• Expertise in Ansible automation and Puppet-to-Ansible migrations.
• Strong foundation in Linux systems engineering and IaC methodologies.