Technology Engineer, Principal - Data Center Networking

Job Description

The Principal Technology Engineer provides enterprise-wide technical leadership and strategic direction for technology engineering initiatives. You'll guide modernization efforts, establish engineering best practices, and ensure solutions are scalable, secure, and aligned with long-term business strategy. This role influences architectural standards and drives innovation across multiple systems and services.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide technical leadership for enterprise technology strategy, governance, and architecture alignment for the organization's Data Center networking environment.
• Lead the design, engineering, implementation, and modernization of enterprise Data Center network solutions supporting mission-critical business services.
• Define engineering standards, reference architectures, operational frameworks, and automation practices to improve operational efficiency, resiliency, scalability, and security.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, senior IT leadership, business stakeholders, and other Principal Technology Engineers to prioritize and deliver strategic technology initiatives.
• Collaborate across multiple technology domains, including Cloud, Security, Compute, Storage, Virtualization, Application Development, and Infrastructure Services, to ensure integrated enterprise solutions.
• Architect, implement, and support Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), Cisco Nexus switching platforms, Nexus Dashboard, and enterprise Data Center fabric technologies.
• Design and maintain highly available Layer 2 and Layer 3 network architectures utilizing VXLAN, EVPN, BGP, OSPF, VRFs, vPC, multicast, and related technologies.
• Lead Data Center modernization initiatives, infrastructure refreshes, network migrations, and strategic technology transformations.
• Provide technical leadership for Data Center expansion initiatives, including enterprise colocation strategies and integration with Equinix facilities.
• Partner with Network Engineering teams to support enterprise WAN evolution, including current Juniper SD-WAN deployments and migration toward Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN.
• Develop and maintain enterprise networking standards, engineering documentation, reference architectures, and operational best practices.
• Lead technical design reviews and provide architectural guidance for complex infrastructure initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend solutions that improve performance, resiliency, security, scalability, and operational efficiency.
• Develop automation strategies utilizing APIs, scripting, Infrastructure-as-Code, and configuration management tools to improve operational consistency and efficiency.
• Mentor engineers across teams, fostering continuous improvement, technical excellence, and knowledge sharing.
• Perform advanced troubleshooting and root cause analysis for complex Data Center networking issues and serve as the highest level of technical escalation during major incidents.
• Maintain awareness of evolving networking technologies and industry best practices to support continuous improvement and enterprise innovation.

Skills and Competencies:

• Deep expertise in enterprise technology architecture and modernization practices
• Strategic mindset with ability to translate business goals into technical solutions
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and stakeholder influence skills
• Mastery of integration frameworks, and automation strategies
• Demonstrated ability to drive innovation across a complex technology landscape
• Demonstrated ability to influence enterprise technical direction without direct authority.
• Mastery of enterprise integration frameworks, automation strategies, and engineering best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to drive innovation across a complex technology landscape.
• Expert knowledge of Cisco Data Center networking technologies, including Cisco ACI, Cisco Nexus 9000 Series, NX-OS, and Nexus Dashboard.
• Expert understanding of enterprise Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking concepts.
• Advanced expertise with VXLAN EVPN, BGP, OSPF, VRFs, vPC, multicast, QoS, Data Center Interconnect (DCI), and high-availability networking architectures.
• Strong understanding of enterprise network segmentation, micro-segmentation, Zero Trust principles, and secure network design.
• Experience integrating Data Center networking with cloud platforms, virtualization technologies, enterprise security solutions, storage platforms, and application delivery architectures
• Experience with network automation utilizing Python, Ansible, REST APIs, Terraform, or similar automation technologies preferred.
• Excellent analytical, documentation, communication, and presentation skills with the ability to effectively communicate technical concepts to engineers, architects, leadership, and executive stakeholders.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or Software Engineering preferred
• 10+ years of progressive experience in technology engineering or IT solution development