Director, Network Development & Operations

Xplore Inc. is Canada’s fibre, 5G and satellite broadband company for rural living. Xplore is committed to the relentless pursuit of an improved broadband experience for all Canadians. Xplore is building a world-class fibre optic and 5G wireless network to enable innovative broadband services for better every day rural living, for today and future generations.

Director, Network Development & Operations
The Director, Network Development & Operations is the senior leader responsible for turning Xplore’s network architecture into an automated, scalable production network, delivering Core & Transport Network Services at a Tier-1 Telco Gold Standard and ensuring uncompromising reliability, security, and performance from the core to the customer. The role leads the teams accountable for detailed IP engineering, DWDM engineering automation, caching implementation, CI/CD, configuration management, telemetry, and operational tooling.

The Director sets the vision and operating model for network-as-code, ensuring that all IP/MPLS, DWDM, and caching configurations are deployed safely, consistently, and er this leadership, the organization builds the automation frameworks, observability pipelines, and operational guardrails that enable high-velocity, low-risk changes across the backbone, reduce manual toil, and strengthen 24×7 operational readiness.

Working in close partnership with Network Architecture & Technology Strategy, the Director ensures that architectural intent is executed through modern Dev Ops practices, and brings operational insight back into standards, roadmaps, and long-term network evolution. The Director connects network development and operations directly to business outcomes and KPIs — including reliability, speed of change, customer experience, and cost efficiency — and serves as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on operational performance and automation maturity.

Key Responsibilities Include
Detailed IP, DWDM & Caching Engineering
Own detailed IP engineering across BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS, segment routing, and routing policy.
Own DWDM configuration automation, including line-system configuration templates, channel provisioning, amplifier and span parameter automation, optical telemetry integration, and operational tooling for DWDM health and performance.
Own caching platform implementation, including cache node configuration, routing and traffic-steering policies, cache peering and placement logic (as defined by Architecture), and performance tuning and hit-ratio optimization.
Translate architectural standards into deployable configuration templates and network-as-code artifacts.

Network Automation & CI/CD Pipelines
Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for IP/MPLS/DWDM and caching configuration deployment.
Implement automated testing, validation, and rollback capabilities.
Drive adoption of network-as-code across the Core & Transport domain, ensuring all changes are executed through automated, repeatable workflows.

Telemetry, Observability & Operational Tooling
Own telemetry pipelines, dashboards, and observability tooling for Core & Transport.
Ensure real-time visibility into routing behavior, caching performance and hit ratios, DWDM optical health (OSNR, span performance, and alarms), and capacity and traffic patterns.
Partner with Service Assurance & Observability to integrate signals, alerts, anomaly detection, and automated diagnostics.

Reliability Engineering & Operational Excellence
Implement guardrails, automated checks, and configuration validation to reduce operational risk.
Lead post-incident automation improvements to prevent recurrence.

Partnership with Architecture & Execution of Architectural Intent
Implement the logical connectivity, caching strategy, DWDM design parameters,…