Principal Operations Engineer, Network
This principal-level role owns operational excellence for a hyperscale AI data center network fleet, leading readiness, high-risk changes, audits, and incident resolution across sites. It requires extensive mission-critical network operations experience, routing and optical networking expertise, and 50–75% travel.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Serve as the senior technical authority for the operational network fleet across hyperscale AI data centers, including switches, routers, copper and fiber cabling, and optics.
- Lead site assessments and operational audits, and drive technical readiness for network operations teams before site activation.
- Review network platforms and integration designs from an operational perspective, feeding lessons back into network engineering, deployment, and supply chain.
- Author, approve, and execute high-risk network methods of procedure (MOPs) and change records in live production.
- Lead fleet-wide root cause analyses of network disruptions through closure.
- Hold OEMs, ODMs, and service vendors accountable to operational standards while maintaining effective relationships.
- Coordinate across network operations, network engineering, compute operations, facilities, supply chain, and customer-facing teams.
- Travel 50–75%.
Requirements
- Career operating mission-critical network topologies at scale, with significant experience as the senior technical authority for a site, campus, or fleet.
- Experience with IP network operations and optical networking.
- Experience with TCP/IP and routing protocols including OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, and MPLS.
- Experience with physical network infrastructure devices.
- Experience authoring and executing high-risk MOPs and leading significant network-event root cause analyses through closure.
- Experience managing OEMs, ODMs, and deployment partners to defined standards.
- Strong technical writing skills for health assessments, RCAs, and design feedback.
- Ability to teach and improve the technical readiness of surrounding teams.
Nice to Have
- Experience with hyperscale or large HPC fleets supporting thousands of endpoints.
- Linux experience.
- Hardware management tooling.
- Experience standing up new sites from handover through steady state.
- Scripting for fleet-scale operations.
Compensation and Benefits
- Total compensation of $258,000–$300,000, including salary and equity.
- Retirement or pension plan in line with local norms.
- Health, dental, and vision insurance.
- Generous paid time off.
- Equity may be provided as restricted stock units.
Skills
Ip Networking, Optical Networking, TCP/IP, Ospf, Is-Is, BGP, Mpls, Network Routing, Linux, Root Cause Analysis, Network Operations, Network Infrastructure, Scripting
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