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.

• 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
• Negotiate and manage:
  Settlement-Free Peering
• Bilateral Peering
• Public Peering
• Maintain peering policies and qualification requirements
• Manage relationships through: IX communities
• Industry forums
• Network operator groups
• Coordinate onboarding and operational support for new peers
• Resolve peering disputes, routing issues, and traffic imbalances

• Manage participation across global Internet Exchanges
• Evaluate IX performance and ROI
• Coordinate provisioning of:
  Cross-connects
• Develop business cases for new IX expansion
• Maintain relationships with IX operators and executive leadership

• 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

• Define and maintain routing policies
• Optimize traffic flows across:
  Transit
• IX fabrics
• Private interconnections
• Manage traffic engineering initiatives using: BGP communities
• Local Preference
• MED
• AS Path Prep ending
• Analyze traffic patterns and forecast growth
• Improve latency, packet loss, and path optimization

• Represent the company at: NANOG
• RIPE
• APRICOT
• LACNIC
• ARIN
• APNIC
• Build executive-level relationships across the Internet ecosystem
• Participate in policy discussions and industry working groups
• Monitor industry trends affecting interconnection and Internet governance

• Partner with:
  Infrastructure Operations
• Security
• Product Management
• Legal
• Procurement
• Finance
• Develop executive reporting and dashboards
• Present interconnection strategy and performance metrics to senior leadership

• BGP-4 (Border Gateway Protocol)
• eBGP
• iBGP
• Route Reflectors
• Confederations
• BGP Communities
• Large Communities
• Flowspec

• IPv4
• IPv6
• ICMP
• TCP/IP
• UDP
• MPLS

• OSPF
• IS-IS
• Segment Routing
• EVPN
• VXLAN

• Internet Exchanges (IX)
• Route Servers
• Route Collectors
• DNS Infrastructure
• Content…