Principal Network Architect

About Underline

Underline starts with our people.

At Underline, we've rapidly built a culture around ownership, trust, community, and innovation. Underline is dedicated to cultivating a growth environment where people feel valued, work with a purpose of mission, are personally rewarded, and are professionally challenged.

Underline was founded in 2019 with a singular mission: to ensure the vibrancy of our nation through building intelligent community infrastructure in a socially equitable manner. We work with American communities to design, finance, and construct open access fiber-optic networks. These networks are critical to secure internet access that’s fast, affordable, and fair. As open access networks, this infrastructure is also the essential foundation for distributed healthcare services, new wireless solutions, and resilient infrastructure including modernized water systems and responsible energy creation. Our first two projects are in Colorado Springs and Fountain, Colorado.

About this Position

We are looking for a Network Architect to help design and evaluate next-generation networking capabilities and architectures to keep Underline’s network and infrastructure stack at the leading edge of the market. This role requires deep technical experience in networking specifically with innovative network architecture across varied market structures. As a Network Architect you will provide network design and engineering expertise and technical leadership across the company with a focus on structuring and automating our regional and national network infrastructures and driving the playbook for regional engineering teams.

What You'll Do

• Provide senior thought leadership and significant technical contributions to help develop target software defined network architectures and recommendations, for the evolution of the network technology stack at Equinix, in close collaboration with stakeholders. The Senior Principal will focus at the outset around designing and developing the network operating system and Layers 2-3 of the network, with Layers 4-7 and cloud to follow
• 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
• Lead the design and architecture of data center projects, ensuring alignment with business goals and technical requirements
• Develop and maintain comprehensive design documentation such as LLD/HLD/PDD/DDD
• Review and approve designs to ensure consistency, performance, scalability, and security
• Engage with customers to understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ to translate them into technical solutions
• Stay abreast of new technologies, continually research and look for opportunities to enhance the network infrastructure
• Collaboratively work with SMEs to robustly validate design and ensure all aspects are considered
• Assist in the specification, ordering, purchasing, asset-tracking, and inventory of network-related equipment/supplies/software
• Challenge, report and advance as necessary to resolve any issues affecting the availability, security or integrity of the network infrastructure
• Work closely with cybersecurity to ensure we are following policies and standard methodologies to secure and harden the network
• Functions of this position are to be performed in a company-designated office or field location
• Understand and align with the company’s Acceptable Use Policy and other industry-specific professional and ethical standards, if applicable
• Additional duties as assigned by Management

Does this sound like you?

• You enjoy speaking with and developing relationships across multiple teams
• You enjoy working as part of a collaborative team
• You are disciplined, detail-oriented, self motivated and able to juggle and execute on multiple tasks and projects in sometimes a nebulous and fluid work environment
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills and are able to explain complex engineering concepts to non-technical, executive audiences
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit—you have no problem getting your hands dirty and have a strong ability to learn quickly and from others

Experience we’re looking for

• 10 years of experience in network architecture
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or similar technical area of study
• Demonstrable, extensive experience in developing next generation networking technologies and architectures implemented in large-scale, critically important deployments
• Top-tier relevant network design or network engineering leadership with software-defined, cloud-native networking technologies and ecosystems is essential with detailed knowledge across layers 2-3 control and network data management planes and ideally networking operating systems as well
• Experience working within a data center environment using multiple vendors is crucial
• Demonstrable CCIE/JNCIE level or higher experience is required
• Proven experience creating detailed, sophisticated migration plans and engagement with customers to gain consensus
• Experience with network automation such as Ansible, Python, GitHub
• Experience using tools such and Microsoft Visio and Microsoft PowerPoint is required
• Substantive knowledge of network (function) disaggregation
• 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
• Substantive track record with network programming in C, C , golang, rust
• Experience with network configuration tools such as Netconf, yang
• Experience with open networking technologies and ecosystems, such as Routing Daemons (FRR, Bird, GoBGP), Linux Networking (eBPF, VPP, XDP), and SONiC, or other Linux-based open Network Operating Systems
• Involvement with modern observability platforms (Prometheus/PromQL, Grafana, gNMI, etc)
• Experience with network flow export (Netflow, IPFIX, sFlow) and analysis
• 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

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $170,000.00 - $200,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Referral program
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Education:

• Bachelor's (Required)

Experience:

• Network Architecture: 10 years (Required)
• Network Automation: 2 years (Required)

License/Certification:

• CCIE or JNCIE (Required)

Location:

• Colorado (Preferred)

Work Location: Remote

Salary : $170,000 - $200,000