Backbone and Peering Architect

About the role

NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC²) operates at the bleeding edge of technology, building critical infrastructure to eliminate friction in scientific research, simulations, analysis, and decision-making. We are seeking an experienced Backbone & Peering Network Architect to own the design and reference architecture of our HPC data center backbone, WAN connectivity, cloud service provider on-ramps, and customer peering.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture of the data center backbone interconnect (DCI), ensuring scalability, redundancy, and performance
• Design and publish reference architectures for WAN connectivity, cloud service provider interconnects, and backbone extensions
• Define architectural standards for routing, traffic engineering, failover, and telemetry across backbone networks
• Align backbone design with capacity planning forecasts and long-term business growth
• Collaborate with Solutions Architects to align network design with workload patterns
• Ensure network security, compliance, and observability are embedded in architecture
• Develop multi-tenant secure networking patterns to support customer isolation and SLA adherence
• Contribute to digital twin models with network capacity and topology simulations

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent
• 7+ years of experience in large-scale data center network design or architecture
• Deep expertise in data center fabrics (leaf-spine, Clos, EVPN, VXLAN)
• Experience with WAN, peering, and interconnect strategies
• Familiarity with HPC workloads and high-bandwidth, low-latency requirements
• Strong documentation and stakeholder communication skills
• Experience with hyperscale or GPU-accelerated environments, supporting AI/ML workloads, infrastructure monitoring, or simulation models
• Strong communicator with leadership and project management experience

Benefits

• Company-Paid Lunch Stipend: Lunch is provided via GrubHub
• Company-Paid Benefits: 100% Employer-Paid Medical in our High Deductible Health Plan, Dental and Vision benefits for employees and their families, 16 weeks of Paid Parental Leave, Employee Assistance Program, Life insurance, Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability
• 401(k): Company will match 100% of your contributions up to 6%
• Optional Employee-Paid Benefits: Medical insurance in our PPO plan and a variety of other benefits such as Health Savings Accounts (with Company Contribution!), Flexible Spending Accounts, Supplemental Life Insurance, Wellhub and more
• Time Off: 25 days of Paid Time Off plus 12 company holidays