Senior Principal, Network Engineer - Global Network Infrastructure & Operations

Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company, operating 240+ data centres across the globe and providing interconnections to all the key clouds and networks. Businesses need one place to simplify and bring together fragmented, complex infrastructure that spans private and public cloud environments. Our global platform allows customers to place infrastructure wherever they need it and connect it to everything they need to succeed.

We are a fast-growing global company with 79 consecutive quarters of growth. Through our innovative portfolio of high-performance products and services, we have created the largest, most active global ecosystem of nearly 10,000 companies, including 2,000+ networks and 3,000+ cloud and IT service providers in over 26 countries spanning five continents.

A career at Equinix means you will collaborate on work that impacts the world and be surrounded by endless opportunities to learn new skills and grow in varied directions. We embrace diversity in thought and contribution and are committed to providing an equitable work environment. that is foundational to our core values as a company and is vital to our success.

Job summary:

• Responsible for driving innovative architectures in line with the latest network technology trends and completeness of architectural changes that meet Product Management and/or Network Systems Engineering requirements.

• Maintains relationships with senior leadership and collaborates with a broad range of stakeholders globally.

• Establishes key performance metrics.

• Drives a culture of innovation, excellence & collaboration with other business functions

• Provides strategic direction in planning/execution.

Job Description

Within Equinix, the Global Networks and Infrastructure Operations (GNIO) team is chartered with:

• Designing, implementing, deploying and operating the company’s global network infrastructure to deliver the best possible performance and experience to customers and internal users

• Evaluating next-generation networking technologies and developing an evolution roadmap and target architectures for the network technology stack (spanning optical, routing, switching, software networking) in close collaboration with the Office of the CTO (OCTO)

• Delivering industry thought leadership and building closer engagement with the developer community in areas relevant to networking.

The GNIO team is looking for a Senior Principal Network Engineering to help design, develop and evaluate next-generation networking capabilities and architectures that will help shape the evolution of Equinix's network and infrastructure stack. We are looking for someone with a passion for developing modern, world-class networking solutions that are scalable, reliable and programmable through software.

Preferred locations: Redwood City, CA (or Sunnyvale, CA), Dallas, TX, Toronto, Canada and other major Equinix locations across Europe such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Slough (UK), Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Paris, Sofia, Warsaw

As a Senior Principal Network Engineer, you will provide network design and engineering expertise and technical leadership across critical and pivotal initiatives focusing on scaling, modernizing, and automating Equinix’s global network infrastructure. You will have the flexibility to work on different projects to utilize new technologies as we continue to explore new areas and drive innovation across the infrastructure space. It presents a great opportunity for a passionate, technical leader to make a tangible impact to the future-state technology stack of Equinix’ global networks and infrastructure. If you believe in the power of technology to change the world, and if you value creativity, work comfortably in a fast-paced environment and are eager to learn new technologies, we would like to talk to you.

Responsibilities

• Provide senior thought leadership and significant technical contributions to help develop target network architectures and recommendations for the evolution of the network technology stack at Equinix, in close collaboration with stakeholders.

• Drive cross-stakeholder alignment on network requirements and design trade-offs.

• Help identify technical debt and drive continual improvement by partnering with associate organizations.

• Provide in-depth technical expertise to identify and evaluate innovations in networking and assess their impact on the network infrastructure of future at Equinix.

• Contribute to next-generation networking proof-of-concept projects in close collaboration with partners (e.g. Office of the CTO) to deliver tangible outcomes that guide new technology investments and implementation decisions to evolve the network technology stack.

• Serve as an orchestrator of thinking internally and externally, including in interactions with customers, partners, forums, and open-source/developer communities.

Qualifications

• Preferably, a Ph.D. or Master’s degree in computer science, or relevant engineering field or similar qualifications.

• Demonstrable and extensive experience in developing networking technologies and architectures implemented in large-scale, critically important deployments. Examples include: a proven background in network infrastructure design, engineering, DevOps/operations, security, tooling, networking products/solutions, etc.

• Top-tier in relevant network design or network engineering leadership with software-defined, cloud-native networking technologies and ecosystems.

• Passionate about infrastructure automation through software together with solid hands-on experience of network automation. Experience of engineering with programming languages (Go, Java, Python, etc.) or API development for network automation is a plus.

• Experience with open networking technologies, ecosystems, open-source communities and industry forums such the Linux Foundation as well as open-source Routing Daemons (FRR, Bird, GoBGP), Linux Networking (eBPF, VPP, XDP), and SONiC, Cumulus, or other Linux-based open Network Operating Systems

• Involvement with modern observability platforms (Prometheus/PromQL, Grafana, etc)

• Solid understanding of full networking stack (routing, switching and optical networking), including key protocols & standards, Linux networking and open-source solutions, vendor ecosystems and implementation best practices.

• Substantive track record with network programming in C, C++, golang, rust

• Excellent writing and verbal communications skills from engineering to executive.

• Excellent collaboration and people skills.

Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability. If you need assistance in applying for an open position, you may send an email to [email protected]. Please provide your contact information and let us know how we can assist you.

Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law. (Equal Opportunity / AA / Disabled / Veterans Employer).