Principal Engineer- Network Engineering

About the role

The Global Technical Facilities Planning group leads the strategic planning, development, and enhancement of Verizon Technical sites in support of network growth across next-generation architectures. We partner closely with Network Equipment owners, Standards, Implementation, and Technology teams to develop, assess, and optimize PSC (Power, Space, and Cooling) capacity loads while integrating Artificial Intelligence, machine learning automation, and intelligent bot-driven workflows that accelerate decision-making and reduce manual effort across our nationwide portfolio.

Responsibilities

• Develop resolutions to complex problems requiring frequent use of creativity and in-depth evaluation of variable factors.
• Provide mentoring on networking, application design, engineering, and automation; act as the final escalation point for production service issues.
• Lead performance meetings with vendors, planning, and maintenance engineering; create detailed project plans.
• Provide input on status calls with cross-organizational teams and finish projects independently under tight timelines.
• Develop excellent working relationships with other departments and vendors to establish best practices for engineering and operations.
• Technical Facilities Planner:
  • Develop, maintain, assess, and calculate PSC (Power, Space, and Cooling) capacity loads across a national portfolio of sites.
  • Leverage 1-, 3-, and 5-year PSC capacity and utilization forecasts to model future facility exhaust and inform build/decommission plans.
  • Plan and design short- and long-term equipment layouts based on Verizon Standards; produce AutoCAD space-planning deliverables.
  • Manage DC power plants, generators, and HVAC systems; perform AC/DC electrical analysis including rectifiers, batteries, BDFBs/PDFs, and generator capacity calculations.
  • Participate in market reviews and site visits to monitor implementation progress and ensure PSC compliance.
  • Identify, lead, and implement PSC solutions involving construction, modification, or decommissioning of equipment.
  • Partner with Technical Facilities Engineers and Implementation teams on capacity solutions including design, vendor management, bidding, permitting, and capital budget requests.
  • Maintain build-ahead margins with attention to technology transformation initiatives (e.g., iEN, OpenRAN, vRAN, edge compute).
• AI Development, Automation & Bot Engineering:
  • Design, develop, and deploy AI-powered bots and automated agents to streamline PSC capacity workflows and data ingestion pipelines.
  • Build and fine-tune large language model (LLM) integrations (e.g., Claude, GPT-4, Gemini) using prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and function/tool-calling frameworks.
  • Develop agentic AI workflows to orchestrate multi-step capacity planning tasks with minimal human intervention.
  • Create Python-based automation scripts, ETL pipelines, and REST/GraphQL API integrations to pull data from systems like COEP, 1ERP/NSAP/vSAP, dcTrack, Canvas, and Clarity.
  • Engineer Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions to replace high-volume, repetitive manual tasks.
  • Design and maintain vector databases and semantic search capabilities for intelligent retrieval of historical capacity data and engineering standards.
  • Develop and deploy chatbot interfaces (Teams, web-based) for non-technical stakeholders to query PSC capacity data using natural language.
  • Implement MLOps practices: model versioning, automated retraining pipelines, performance monitoring, and drift detection using AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes.
  • Produce machine learning forecasting models (regression, time-series, ensemble methods) to predict power/cooling exhaust dates with confidence intervals.
  • Partner with TIES teams to define AI/automation roadmaps, author technical user stories, and participate in Agile/Scrum ceremonies.
• Data Analytics, Dashboards & Reporting:
  • Build interactive dashboards in Looker and Tableau to surface real-time PSC utilization, risk heat maps, and forecast accuracy KPIs.
  • Develop KPIs with planning and construction teams to deliver reporting on forecasting accuracy and capacity program health.
  • Prepare and deliver executive readouts to senior and C-suite leadership, translating complex data into strategic narratives.
  • Partner with stakeholders to identify process improvement opportunities and cost-savings solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or four or more years of equivalent work experience.
• Six or more years of relevant work experience in technical facilities planning, facility engineering, Network Systems, or a related technical discipline.
• Power, Space, and Cooling design and/or construction experience in a telecommunications or data center environment.
• Experience with Python for data analysis, automation, and model development.
• Hands-on experience integrating or building with LLM APIs (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, or equivalent) including prompt engineering and tool/function calling.
• Experience building automated workflows, bots, or scripts that replace or augment manual operational processes.
• Proficiency with SQL, Oracle, and SQL Server for data modeling, and visualization tools including Looker and Tableau.
• Experience leading through influence in a cross-functional team environment across engineering, IT, and operations.
• Strong presentation and communication skills with a proven ability to influence and present to all levels of the organization.
• Basic understanding of electrical systems, DC power design, and telecommunications network architecture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency with agentic AI frameworks, Python, and deployment on AWS and Azure.
• Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases (e.g., PostgreSQL with pgvector), and semantic search.
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA) experience using custom Python-based automation.
• MLOps experience: deploying and monitoring ML models in production on AWS and Azure using Kubernetes and Git/SVN.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) for hosting AI/ML workloads, APIs, and data pipelines.
• REST API design and consumption; experience building internal tool backends using Python, Java, or JavaScript in UNIX-based environments.
• AutoCAD experience for Central Office and technical facility space planning.
• Familiarity with systems including 1PSC-UNO, NPP, dcTrack, DRAAS, AutoCAD, CCP, Canvas, Clarity, vSAP GUI, ERP-SAP Portal.
• Electrical, Mechanical, or Civil Engineering degree.
• Experience with Verizon network architecture.
• Project Management certification (PMP, PgMP) or Agile/Scrum certification (CSM, SAFe).
• Experience developing user stories, defining acceptance criteria, and participating in sprint ceremonies as a technical lead.
• Proven track record of driving cross-functional cost, quality, and time improvement initiatives with measurable results.
• Strong negotiation and written communication skills for influencing multiple technical and non-technical organizations.

Schedule

This is a hybrid role with a defined work location that includes both remote work and assigned office days as set by the manager. Employees are responsible for maintaining compliance with hybrid work policies. Scheduled weekly hours: 40.

Benefits

• Health and wellness benefits: medical, dental, vision, short- and long-term disability, basic and supplemental life insurance, AD&D insurance, identity theft protection, pet insurance, and group home & auto insurance.
• Retirement: matched 401(k) savings plan.
• Time off: up to 8 company-paid holidays per year, up to 6 personal days per year, and up to 15 days of vacation per year (growing with additional service).
• Additional benefits: paid parental leave, adoption assistance, tuition assistance, and other incentives.
• Premium pay opportunities: overtime, shift differential, holiday pay, allowances, etc.

Pay

The annual salary range for this role based on a full-time schedule is $107,000.00 - $205,000.00, depending on location and confirmed job-related skills and experience. This is an incentive-based position with the potential to earn more. For Colorado and Illinois locations, the range is $118,000.00 - $205,000.00.