IBM Hiring Cloud Network Automation Software Engineer Intern

Introduction

At IBM, work goes beyond a job. It's a calling: to build, design, code, consult, collaborate, and invent. We aim to tackle challenges you never thought possible. If you're ready to lead in this new era of technology and solve some of the world's most complex problems, let's talk.

About Business Unit

IBM Cloud is the global public cloud platform from IBM, one of the most secure, scalable, and enterprise-ready cloud platforms in the world. It powers thousands of enterprises with IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings across public, private, and hybrid cloud models. Within IBM Cloud, the Network Underlay organization designs, builds, and operates the physical and software-defined network infrastructure that underpins IBM Cloud's global data centers.

NetTools is the automation and tooling engineering team within Network Underlay. We build software systems that enable network engineers to provision, configure, monitor, and manage network infrastructure at scale across dozens of data centers globally. The Network Automation mission develops and operates three interconnected platforms: NCS/Axon (Network Configuration Service), SSOT (Source of Truth) and Hivemind, and the associated monitoring, validation, and reporting pipelines.

Role Overview

As a Back-End Software Engineering Intern on the NetTools Network Automation team, you will work alongside engineers actively building and evolving the Axon/NCS platform and the SSOT/Hivemind systems. This is a hands-on engineering role where you will contribute directly to production-grade back-end services and automation pipelines critical to IBM Cloud's network infrastructure.

Your Responsibilities

• Contribute to the Axon/NCS project: develop back-end Python microservices for Day-0 (initial provisioning, Zero Touch Provisioning) and Day-2 (operational changes, firmware updates, configuration drift remediation) automation workflows, including REST API endpoints, YAML-driven input processing, and Jinja2-based configuration generation.
• Build and improve automated test coverage: design and implement unit and integration tests for the Axon/NCS platform, including authoring test cases, identifying edge conditions, and validating end-to-end workflow correctness.
• Support SSOT and Hivemind integration: assist in developing interfaces between NCS/Axon and the SSOT/Hivemind data platforms (backed by NetBox and CockroachDB), ensuring reliable consumption and validation of network context data.
• Reduce technical debt and improve documentation: contribute to the NCS Overhaul initiative by refactoring tightly coupled components, improving Docker container configuration practices, and writing operational runbooks and onboarding documentation.
• Participate in agile delivery: work within sprint-based development, track work in Jira, attend standups and sprint ceremonies, contribute to code reviews, and share progress with cross-functional stakeholders.

Required Skills

• Back-end development in Python: hands-on experience writing Python services or scripts, including data structures, JSON/YAML processing, and REST API design (e.g., Flask, FastAPI).
• Version control with Git: ability to work collaboratively in a Git-based workflow, including branching, pull requests, and code reviews.
• Containerization fundamentals: familiarity with Docker, including building images, running containers, and understanding container-based deployment.
• Understanding of REST APIs and HTTP: ability to design, implement, and consume RESTful APIs.
• Automated testing aptitude: experience writing unit or integration tests, or understanding of why automated test coverage matters in production-critical systems.
• Working knowledge with scripting or infrastructure tools: Bash, Ansible, Python automation scripts, or equivalent configuration management tooling.
• Familiarity with template engines such as Jinja2, Helm, or similar.
• Exposure to container orchestration or cloud-native platforms: Kubernetes, OpenShift, or Docker Compose.
• Basic understanding of networking concepts: IP addressing (IPv4/IPv6), VLANs, switching, routing fundamentals, or exposure to Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP).
• Working knowledge with monitoring, observability, or ITSM tools: Grafana, Splunk, Zabbix, JIRA, ServiceNow, GitHub, or Confluence.