Senior Principal Front-End Network Engineer, AI Infrastructure Operations

About the role

The Network Operations and Engineering teams at Nscale operate some of the most demanding networking environments in the industry, supporting large-scale AI GPU clusters where network performance directly impacts customer outcomes.

We’re looking for a Senior Principal Front End Network Engineer – AI Infrastructure to provide technical leadership across Nscale’s front-end networking domain. This role is focused on owning the reliability, scalability, and long-term evolution of our high-performance Ethernet front-end networks. These networks support inference traffic, cluster management, data ingress/egress, shared storage connectivity, long-haul circuits, and carrier handoffs. You will operate as a senior technical authority, influencing architecture, standards, and operational practices across teams while tackling the most complex front-end network challenges in the platform.

What You'll Be Doing

• Owning the technical direction and operational strategy for Nscale’s front-end AI infrastructure networks at the highest level
• Designing, reviewing, and evolving large-scale Ethernet leaf-spine / Clos fabric architectures (including Arista and Nokia platforms) to support future growth, inference workloads, and storage requirements
• Acting as the senior-most escalation point for the most complex front-end network incidents, guiding deep technical investigations and systemic fixes
• Driving cross-team and cross-functional initiatives to improve fabric reliability, performance predictability, observability, and operational maturity at scale
• Defining standards for hardware configuration, routing, congestion management, firmware lifecycle management, automation, and change safety across Arista EOS and Nokia platforms
• Partnering with SRE, Compute Platform, Storage, and Network Architecture teams to influence end-to-end system design, including long-haul/DCI circuits and storage network integration
• Mentoring senior and principal-level network engineers, raising the bar for operational rigor and technical excellence across the organization
• Driving measurable improvements in uptime, latency consistency, capacity efficiency, and incident reduction for front-end services

About You (Skills / Qualifications)

• 12+ years of experience in network engineering, with deep focus on hyperscale data centre, cloud, or AI infrastructure networking
• Expert-level operational and architectural experience with large-scale Ethernet data centre fabrics (leaf-spine / Clos topologies)
• Strong hands-on expertise with Arista (EOS / Etherlink) and/or Nokia (7220 IXR, 7250 IXR, 7750 SR series) platforms in production environments at scale
• Deep understanding of modern data centre routing and control planes (BGP, OSPF, ECMP, EVPN-VXLAN)
• Proven experience with long-haul circuits, DCI, and optical transport (dark fiber, carrier Ethernet, coherent optics, ZR/ZR+)
• Strong background in storage networking over Ethernet and shared storage connectivity at hyperscale
• Demonstrated ability to debug and resolve complex cross-layer issues spanning hardware, optics, routing, and application layers
• Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives across teams and influence strategy without direct authority
• A systems-level mindset, balancing performance, reliability, scalability, and operational cost at the highest level

Nice to Have

• Extensive experience with Arista or Nokia platforms at hyperscale or large AI infrastructure scale
• Deep familiarity with front-end network design patterns for massive AI clusters (inference, management, and storage tiers)
• Experience designing or operating large-scale DCI / long-haul optical or carrier networks
• Strong automation and tooling experience (Python, Ansible, validation frameworks, telemetry pipelines)
• Prior experience influencing platform or infrastructure strategy at significant scale

What We Can Offer You

• Hightly competitive package (base + equity) with reviews every 12 months
• Join the fastest-growing tech startup, your chance to push boundaries, collaborate with brilliant minds, and make your mark on cutting-edge AI
• Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by trying new things, leading, challenging the status quo, and owning your impact, always with our full support

Equal Opportunities Statement

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

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