Principal Engineer

Verisign helps enable the security, stability, and resiliency of the internet. We are a trusted provider of internet infrastructure services for the networked world and deliver unmatched performance in domain name system (DNS) services. We are a mission focused, values driven company where each individual can contribute to building a stronger, more secure internet.  We offer a dynamic and flexible work environment with competitive benefits and the ability to grow your career.

The Principal Engineer is responsible for developing, managing, and optimizing the organization’s global Internet interconnection strategy. This role oversees settlement-free peering, paid peering, IP transit, Internet Exchange (IX) participation, traffic engineering, routing policy, and strategic relationships with network operators, content providers, cloud providers, carriers, and Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).The ideal candidate possesses strong technical networking expertise, business negotiation skills, and industry engagement experience to improve network performance, reduce transit costs, increase resiliency, and support the company’s global connectivity objectives.

Responsibilities:

Interconnection Strategy Develop and execute the global peering and interconnection strategy

Identify opportunities to expand peering relationships and optimize transit utilization

Drive network growth through strategic partnerships with ISPs, cloud providers, content networks, CDNs, carriers, and hyperscalers

Evaluate new IX opportunities and regional expansion initiatives

Establish KPIs for traffic offload, cost reduction, latency improvements, and resiliency

Peering Management Negotiate and manage:

Settlement-Free Peering Bilateral Peering Multilateral Peering Public Peering Private Peering Maintain peering policies and qualification requirements

Manage relationships through:

PeeringDBIX communities

Industry forums

Network operator groups

Coordinate onboarding and operational support for new peers

Resolve peering disputes, routing issues, and traffic imbalances

Internet Exchange (IX) Operations Manage participation across global Internet Exchanges Evaluate IX performance and ROICoordinate provisioning of:

Cross-connects

Port upgrades

New exchange deployments

Develop business cases for new IX expansion

Maintain relationships with IX operators and executive leadership IP Transit Management Manage global transit providers and carrier relationships

Conduct transit capacity planning

Negotiate contracts and pricing

Evaluate transit performance and redundancy requirements

Develop strategies to reduce transit costs through increased peering

Monitor traffic shifts between transit and peering environments

Routing & Traffic Engineering Define and maintain routing policies

Optimize traffic flows across:

Peering

TransitIX fabrics

Private interconnections

Manage traffic engineering initiatives using:

BGP communities

Local PreferenceMEDAS Path Prepending Analyze traffic patterns and forecast growth

Improve latency, packet loss, and path optimization

Industry Engagement Represent the company at:

NANOGRIPEAPRICOTLACNICARINAPNICGlobal Peering Forum Build executive-level relationships across the Internet ecosystem

Participate in policy discussions and industry working groups

Monitor industry trends affecting interconnection and Internet governance

Cross-Functional Leaderships Partner with:

Network Engineering Infrastructure Operations Security Product  Management Legal Procurement Finance Develop  executive reporting and dashboards

Present interconnection strategy and performance metrics to senior leadership

Required Technical Expertise Routing ProtocolsBGP-4 (Border Gateway Protocol) eBGPiBGPRoute Reflectors

ConfederationsBGP Communities Large Communities Flowspec Core  Internet ProtocolsIPv4IPv6

ICMPTCP/IPUDPMPLSRouting TechnologiesOSPFIS-ISSegment RoutingEVPNVXLANInternet Infrastructure Internet Exchanges (IX)
Route Servers Route CollectorsCDN Architectures

AnycastDNS InfrastructureDDoS Mitigation Architectures Content Delivery Networks Routing SecurityRPKIROA ValidationASPABGPsecMANRSIRR Databases Route Filtering Prefix Filtering Monitoring & Analytics Net Flows Flow IPFIXSNMPTelemetry

Traffic Analytics Platforms Capacity Planning Tools Cloud & Interconnection Platforms AWS Direct Connect Azure Express Route Google  Cloud Interconnect Oracle Fast Connect Equinix  Fabric Megaport Business  & Commercial Responsibilities Peering negotiations

Transit contract negotiations

Capacity planning and budgeting

Vendor…