Principal Network Engineer - AI Infrastructure

About the Role

The Principal Network Engineer – AI Infrastructure plays a key role in building the high-performance network infrastructure that powers the organization’s AI and GPU-driven workloads. This position is responsible for designing and delivering scalable data center solutions that support large-scale training and inference platforms. By leveraging modern architectures such as leaf-spine fabrics and aligning with leading vendor and industry reference designs, the role helps enable reliable, high-throughput environments that directly support critical business initiatives. Working closely with engineering, platform, and security partners, this role helps connect network, compute, and security capabilities into a cohesive, high-performing ecosystem. In addition to hands-on technical contribution, the position provides guidance on best practices, supports the development of other engineers, and helps shape the future direction of the organization’s AI infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Collaboration & Expertise
  • Partner with compute, storage, platform, and security teams to design integrated AI infrastructure solutions.
  • Serve as a senior technical authority aligning network designs with NVIDIA, Cisco, and industry reference architecture.
  • Influence enterprise network and security strategy through collaboration with engineering leadership and stakeholders.
• Analysis & Configuration
  • Design and implement high-performance data center networks optimized for AI/GPU workloads, including leaf-spine and EVPN/VXLAN fabrics.
  • Integrate networking with GPU clusters and high-performance storage systems supporting training and inference workloads.
  • Optimize network performance (latency, throughput, congestion) for large-scale distributed environments.
  • Evaluate and deploy advanced networking technologies to improve scalability, reliability, and security.
• Operational Support
  • Support 24/7 infrastructure operations, including on-call responsibilities across cloud, on-prem, and colocation environments.
  • Lead incident response and resolution for network-related issues, driving root cause analysis and resilience improvements.
• Mentorship and Training
  • Mentor and develop engineers, promoting best practices in networking and security.
  • Support knowledge sharing through training sessions and technical enablement.
• Innovation and Research
  • Evaluate and adopt emerging AI infrastructure and networking technologies (e.g., high-speed interconnects, next gen switching).
  • Contribute to research, innovation, and continuous improvement of network and security capabilities.
• Strategic Planning
  • Define and drive the data center network strategy supporting AI/ML platforms and business initiatives.
  • Establish standards and reference architecture aligned with industry best practices.
  • Guide long-term roadmap decisions, balancing performance, scalability, security, and risk.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in network engineering, with at least 5+ years in a leadership, architectural, or lead engineering role delivering enterprise or cloud network initiatives end-to-end.
• 5+ years of experience designing and operating large-scale data center networks, including Layer 2/3 architectures (leaf-spine/Clos), EVPN/VXLAN overlays, and high-speed networking (100/200/400Gb+).
• 5+ years of experience with enterprise routing, switching, and network platforms, including Cisco-centric data center fabrics, protocols (BGP, OSPF, MPLS, STP), and hybrid connectivity (SD-WAN, VPN, remote access).
• 5+ years of experience implementing network security technologies, including Palo Alto Networks firewalls (required), NGFW, IDS/IPS, ZTNA, DLP, and micro-segmentation, with understanding of application-aware and zero trust architectures.
• 3+ years of experience supporting AI/ML or GPU-based environments, including NVIDIA reference architectures and performance-optimized networking for distributed training workloads (e.g., traffic flow optimization, congestion management).
• 3+ years of experience with application delivery and observability technologies, including F5 load balancing, network performance monitoring tools (e.g., NetFlow, Wireshark, SolarWinds), and traffic analysis for performance tuning.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and supporting AI factory / GPU cluster environments at scale (training and inference platforms).
• Familiarity with high-performance compute networking enhancements (RDMA over Converged Ethernet – RoCE, PFC, ECN).
• Experience with Cisco Nexus, ACI, or equivalent data center switching platforms supporting AI workloads.
• Strong technical expertise with Networking and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) principles.
• Strong technical expertise with developing and interpreting Network, Sequence, and Dataflow diagrams.
• Understanding of at least one compliance framework (HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI, NIST, CSA).
• Strong technical expertise in defining and implementing cyber resilience standards, policies, and programs for distributed cloud and network infrastructure, ensuring robust redundancy and system reliability.
• Experience in influencing industry standards and contributing to open-source projects or security communities.
• Experience with network automation and Infrastructure as Code.
• Background in high-availability and disaster recovery design.
• Certifications: CCIE/CCNP, JNCIE, AWS/Azure/GCP Networking, PCNSE/PAN or Security Specialty, CISSP.

Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience (High School Diploma and 4 years relevant experience).

Pay

The typical pay range for this role is $144,200.00 - $288,400.00. This pay range represents the base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls. The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors. This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program.

Benefits

This full-time position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of colleagues and their families. The benefits for this position include:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Paid time off.
• Retirement savings options.
• Wellness programs and other resources.