Summary:
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
Additional Skills:
- Extensive experience designing, implementing, and supporting Cisco Data Center networking solutions utilizing Cisco ACI and Cisco Nexus platforms.
- Expert-level experience with Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, VXLAN, EVPN, enterprise routing, switching, and Data Center networking technologies.
- Experience supporting highly available, mission-critical enterprise environments.
- Experience collaborating with Enterprise Architecture teams and cross-functional engineering organizations to develop enterprise technology standards and roadmaps.
- Experience developing enterprise engineering standards, operational procedures, and technical documentation.
- Experience supporting large enterprise environments; healthcare industry experience is preferred.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Data Center certification required or equivalent demonstrated experience.
- Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Data Center certification strongly preferred.
- Cisco DevNet Professional certification or equivalent experience with network automation is preferred.
- Experience with Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights, Fabric Controller, or related Cisco Data Center management platforms.
- Experience designing and supporting enterprise Data Center Interconnect (DCI) solutions.
- Experience with Equinix colocation facilities and enterprise Data Center expansion initiatives.
- Experience with Juniper SD-WAN and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN technologies.
- Experience leading enterprise network modernization and digital transformation initiatives.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and serving as a technical leader across multiple engineering disciplines.
Originally posted on