Senior Network Developer - Topology Scaling

Senior Network Developer – Topology Scaling Location: Nashville, Austin or near of our data center build locations As a Topology Scaling engineer, you’ll lead network capacity expansion, automation, and deployment initiatives while working alongside engineering, automation, hardware, and operations teams to deliver highly reliable cloud infrastructure at hyperscale. This role requires approximately 10% travel, which typically means traveling at least once per month to OCI data centers—including Abilene, Texas, and other major AI deployment locations—to support network builds, commissioning, troubleshooting, and critical infrastructure milestones. The Topology Scaling team is responsible for deploying new capacity, new designs, establishing network connectivity for new (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) OCI regions, and enabling compute connectivity for child sites. This includes building and managing data center fabrics, edge networks, backbone, fiber metro networks, and supporting multi-cloud initiatives. This role involves designing, deploying, and operating large-scale global cloud networks. It requires a deep understanding of network protocols and programming skills to support automation at scale. As OCI's cloud network spans a global footprint, this role supports a vast infrastructure of network devices and millions of connected servers across dedicated backbone and internet-based connectivity. Participate in network lifecycle management through build and upgrade projects. Collaborate with program and project managers to define milestones and deliverables. Execute network changes using existing procedures and tools, and develop new procedures as needed. Serve as a technical lead on team projects, contributing to roadmap development, creating new runbooks and methods of procedure, and mentoring junior engineers. Responsibilities include participating in solution and architecture design, developing standalone features, supporting operational rotations, providing break-fix support, serving as an escalation point, and leading post-event root cause analysis. Additional duties include coordinating with automation services to develop and integrate tooling, scripting to automate routine tasks, and acting as an SME for network automation projects. The role also involves collaborating with vendors to resolve software bugs, qualifying new firmware/operating systems, and driving product roadmap influence. Critical Focus Areas Cable, trunk, and optics troubleshooting, including structured cabling systems. Break-fix and escalation support for complex network events. Root cause analysis and remediation leadership. Qualifications Experience in large ISP or cloud provider environments. Hands-on exposure to commodity Ethernet hardware (Broadcom, Mellanox). Deep knowledge of routing and transport protocols: BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, TCP, IPv4, IPv6, DNS, DHCP, MPLS. Experience with Internet peering, inter-domain networking, and VPN/SSL technologies. Proficiency in scripting/automation (Python preferred) and datacenter design. Familiarity with automation frameworks, network modeling (YANG, OpenConfig, NETCONF), and telemetry systems. Strong understanding of network security design, system performance testing, and operational monitoring. Excellent communication skills with proven ability to influence product direction and priorities. Key Responsibilities Network Design, Development, and Validation: -Designs and develops advanced network fabric and systems to support large-scale enterprise, data center, or cloud-based networking environments. -Validates production networks and develops scaling strategies for varied use cases. -Participates in the network solution and architecture design/validation process, providing expertise and guidance. -Identifies and assesses complex risks in network design before deployment, recommending mitigations. -Collaborates with vendors and internal groups (e.g., quality assurance) to ensure hardware, firmware, software, and cloud network code. -Designs playbooks for investigations to resolve common issues related to network areas. -Analyzes network workflows and proposes optimizations to enhance performance and efficiency. Automation and Scripting: -Designs and builds moderately complex modules within moderately complex automation frameworks for testing and operations to enhance efficiency. -Automates critical network tasks, including production and lab environments and optimizes repetitive support functions to improve processes. -Builds and customizes moderately complex dashboards, telemetry systems, and alerting mechanisms to proactively monitor network health. -Writes and enhances advanced scripts to automate routine tasks across teams and business units. -Uses and adjusts infrastructure pipelines, configuration items, using established playbooks and resources. -Independently configures tools to meet requirements of new products or services. Testing and Quality Assurance: -Develops standalone, moderately complex test cases and test strategies to ensure and enhance network integrity. -Serves as technical lead for test practices and strategies, providing guidance to the team and collaborating with other internal stakeholders in the development of robust testing protocols. -Implements new approaches to improve break-fix validation and post-event root cause analysis (RCA), ensuring issues are resolved and lessons are integrated within the team. -Conducts L1 network change reviews and creates and presents network changes to change management review boards. -Collaborates with stakeholders to validate systems and environments through pre-production testing, ensuring compliance with internal standards prior to deployment. -Provides audit documentation and evidence as part of Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) to ensure alignment with governance and security requirements. Monitoring and Reliability: -Works with others (e.g. monitoring teams) to maintain advanced dashboards, telemetry systems, and alerting mechanisms to monitor network health, including defining metrics, trends, and thresholds to ensure service level objectives (SLOs). -Uses tools from the monitoring team to monitor alerting systems and provides feedback to enhance the detection and diagnosis of network anomalies. -Participates in operational support rotations, providing guidance in incident response and root cause investigations, and collaborating with stakeholders across team to resolve escalated issues. -Develops and enhances tools and solutions for frontline support teams to drive efficiencies in responding to network failure conditions. Cross-Team Collaboration and Leadership: -Works alongside project program managers and uses templated project plan to ensure achievement of critical test and deployment milestones and project alignment. -Mentors junior engineers and provides subject matter expert (SME) guidance on technical issues. -Engages with customers to clarify technical issues, and contributes to the delivery of root cause analysis (RCA) documentation. -Contributes to roadmap and software architecture discussions, ensuring ideas are shared within team and implemented where necessary. -Collaborates with vendors and internal teams to ensure adherence to networking standards, identifying areas of misalignment and identifying resolutions. Performance and Capacity Management: -Analyzes network performance and service metrics (e.g., latency, throughput, packet loss) to identify network efficiency issues and takes next steps to scale network. -Uses capacity information through security and performance metrics to ensure the infrastructure can support anticipated growth. Core Responsibilities Planning & Execution: -Independently manages work, monitoring timelines and deliverables to ensure projects or initiatives stay on track and meet requirements. Proactively prioritizes work and adapts to resource or timeline shifts, suggesting adjustments to maintain project efficiency. Collabor