Principal Network Engineer

Job Description Overview

Building trusted markets — powered by our people. 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. We’re building meaningful ways to support professional and personal development while strengthening the trust we’ve earned as a global market leader.

Our teams are empowered to share ideas, actively pursue them and bring on a challenge. As champions of internal mobility and access to opportunity, we encourage our people to “go for it” and equip our managers with the training to coach their teams to the next level. We strive to provide employees a safe space to network, share ideas and create opportunities.

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 an abundance of natural light and panoramic views of the city skyline and the Chicago River. With its prime location in the heart of downtown, the OPO Building provides easy access to major transportation hubs, including Union Station and multiple CTA lines, making it convenient for commuters.

The building is home to a variety of amenities, including restaurants, a fitness center, and collaborative work spaces, creating a vibrant and dynamic work environment in one of Chicago's most iconic areas.

Cboe Global Markets is seeking a Principal Network Engineer to serve as a 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, combined with the ability to operate independently and own complex problems end‑to‑end.

The 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 across the organization.

• Design and evolve low‑latency, highly resilient network architecture across global data center, co‑location, and cloud‑connected environments, with a focus 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, working closely with engineering and software development teams to evaluate hardware capabilities, identify design constraints, and optimize exchange performance based on findings.
• Lead high‑complexity 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, with direct experience using both API‑driven and SSH‑based automation approaches.
• Partner across infrastructure, security, application, and business teams to align network design and delivery with technical requirements, operational goals, and broader organizational priorities, including support for budgeting and planning related to…