Principal Network Engineer

At Cboe Global Markets, we inspire our people to solve complex challenges together because what we do matters. We provide the financial infrastructure that powers the global economy. As a leading provider of market infrastructure and tradable products, Cboe delivers cutting‑edge trading, clearing and investment solutions to market participants around the world.

Cboe HQ is located in the historic Old Post Office district, a landmark that blends classic architecture with modern amenities. The building features expansive spaces with high ceilings and large windows, offering natural light and panoramic views of the city skyline and the Chicago River. With its prime location in downtown, the OPO Building provides easy access to major transportation hubs, including Union Station and CTA lines.

Amenities include restaurants, a fitness center, and collaborative work spaces.

The Principal Network Engineer will be the deep technical anchor for our global network infrastructure. This role is responsible for shaping the design, scalability, and long‑term evolution of highly distributed, latency‑sensitive trading networks across on‑prem and cloud environments. The Principal Engineer brings expert‑level knowledge of deterministic packet forwarding, advanced routing design, and ultra‑low latency architecture, with the ability to operate independently and own complex problems end‑to‑end.

This individual partners closely with Network Engineering leadership and cross‑functional architecture teams to lead high‑complexity initiatives, conduct rigorous pre‑implementation testing and validation, and establish best practices that drive consistency and reliability across the environment. They function as a technical leader without formal authority—mentoring senior engineers, influencing design decisions, and raising the overall engineering bar.

• Design and evolve low‑latency, highly resilient network architecture across global data center, co‑location, and cloud‑connected environments, focusing on deterministic packet forwarding, scalability, and operational consistency.
• Lead advanced routing design and implementation across complex global environments, including BGP, OSPF, MPLS, multicast, hybrid cloud connectivity, traffic engineering, and high‑availability network patterns.
• Conduct deep technical research, lab validation, and pre‑implementation testing for major network initiatives, evaluating hardware capabilities, design constraints, and optimizing exchange performance.
• Lead strategic projects from design through execution, producing detailed technical designs, migration runbooks, capacity plans, and implementation guidance for large‑scale network changes.
• Develop and maintain Python‑based network automation to support configuration management, change validation, testing, and operational efficiency, using API‑driven and SSH‑based approaches.
• Partner across infrastructure, security, application, and business teams to align network design with technical requirements, operational goals, and broader priorities, including budgeting and planning of hardware and software investments.
• Serve as a senior technical leader and mentor, driving architecture reviews, design standards, knowledge sharing, and technical development for other engineers.
• Operate effectively in a fast‑moving, dynamic environment, balancing long‑term architectural direction with immediate engineering and operational needs.
• Contribute to monitoring and telemetry strategy by defining visibility requirements and supporting tools such as Prometheus or Grafana to improve operational insight and troubleshooting.
• Support development of technical standards, design documentation, and regulatory or audit‑facing materials when needed, including documentation for SEC or other regulatory review processes.

• 10+ years of hands‑on network engineering experience in mission‑critical, low‑latency environments with a strong track record of evolving high‑performance network infrastructure.
• Deep expertise in low‑latency and deterministic network design, with practical experience analyzing latency, jitter, and…