Senior Operations Engineer

stellar //; Bruges; Hybrid; EUR 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Ownership

Hands-on work

Learning culture

International team

Competitive pay

Job summary

Stellar in Bruges, France, seeks a Senior Operations Engineer to serve as technical reference for operations, provide advanced customer support, deploy PoCs, and demonstrate Stellar solutions across edge, gateway and cloud layers.

You will work with Engineering, Product and Sales to troubleshoot, deploy and optimize our STEER Suite in real customer environments, building end-to-end expertise and contributing to process improvements.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in network operations or similar hands-on role.
• Strong knowledge of TCP/IP, routing, VPNs and WAN technologies.
• Experience with edge devices, gateways and cloud platforms.
• Proven ability to investigate, diagnose and resolve complex issues.

Responsibilities

• Own complex incidents across edge, gateway and management tiers.
• Reproduce issues in lab, analyze logs and traces to identify root causes.
• Deliver PoCs, plan tests and document conclusions.
• Explain architecture and solutions to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Stage and deploy devices and services for customer readiness.
• Deploy dedicated STEER Management and STEER Gateway instances.
• Train customers on STEER Suite and provide ongoing support.
• Create and maintain customer-facing documentation.
• Act as operations reference for Engineering, Product and Sales.
• Maintain lab and demo environments and contribute to testing.
• Develop scripts and reusable procedures to improve support.

Skills

Networking

Embedded Linux

SD-WAN

Virtualization

Diagnostics

Scripting

Git & APIs

English proficiency

Problem solving

Tools

OpenWrt

Proxmox

VMware

Wireshark

tcpdump

iperf

Python

Bash

Job description

About Stellar

Stellar brings together professionals and experts from a range of exciting domains and technologies: telecommunications (cellular 4G/5G terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, Wi-Fi and satellites), mobility (trains, aircraft, drones and road vehicles), and software for efficient data transmission, orchestration, network management, data collection, processing and analysis, including growing AI/ML capabilities.

Stellar brings together professionals and experts from a range of exciting domains and technologies: telecommunications (cellular 4G/5G terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, Wi-Fi and satellites), mobility (trains, aircraft, drones and road vehicles), and software for efficient data transmission, orchestration, network management, data collection, processing and analysis, including growing AI/ML capabilities.

Our products and solutions, the STEER® Software Suite, M2M/IoT solutions and the all‑in‑one GLOBBLE® offering, are transforming how people and vehicles experience connectivity while on the move by enabling seamless, ubiquitous and reliable broadband services. More information is available at https://www.stellar.tc.

Stellar is an ideal workplace for professionals who are eager to learn, challenge conventional approaches, explore practical innovations and take meaningful ownership in a supportive, collaborative, results‑driven, international and professional environment.

Position Summary

The Senior Operations Engineer is part of a small team acting as the technical reference for Stellar's operations. You provide advanced customer support, deliver proofs of concept (PoCs), present and demonstrate Stellar solutions, and drive the quality and depth of our operational practices.

Our solutions rely on a three-tier architecture: edge devices running embedded Linux that orchestrate traffic across WAN links (cellular, satellite, fibre, point-to-point, etc.), a gateway tier that terminates the multipath sessions (MPTCP, MPQUIC) and reassembles the traffic sent over those links, and a cloud-based management platform. Most field issues surface at the edge, and resolving them requires a solid understanding of the full chain, from the device to the gateway and the back‑office. You will build and maintain this end‑to‑end understanding of the system.

This is a senior, hands‑on role. You investigate in depth, dig into logs, traces, configurations and code, reproduce issues in the lab, and bring well‑founded diagnostics to Engineering. You work closely with Engineering, Product and Sales to deploy, troubleshoot and demonstrate our solutions in real customer environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Advanced customer support: Own complex incidents involving infrastructure, applications, connectivity and Stellar products, from initial qualification through resolution. Keep customers informed and elevate to Engineering with a documented root‑cause analysis.
• In‑depth investigation: Reproduce issues in the lab, analyse logs, packet captures, routing, tunnels, system metrics and source code (shell, Python) to identify root causes across the edge, gateway and management tiers.
• Proofs of concept: Translate customer requirements into a defined scope, test plan and success criteria. Prepare, configure and deploy PoC environments, execute tests, analyse results and document conclusions and recommendations.
• Technical presentations: Explain Stellar's architecture, capabilities and use cases to technical and non‑technical audiences. Deliver product demonstrations and answer customer questions, clearly communicating prerequisites and limitations.
• Device staging and deployment readiness: Working alongside logistics, stage hardware ahead of each customer delivery: flash and validate the right firmware, pre‑provision devices, register them on the management platform and test them end to end so every unit ships production‑ready. Install and configure edge devices, gateways, virtual machines and connectivity services, and support onboarding, upgrades and operational handovers.
• Dedicated instance deployment: Deploy dedicated STEER® Management and STEER® Gateway instances, on Stellar‑hosted VPS or on customer premises, using the deployment tooling provided by the DevOps team. Configure and validate each instance with the customer, lead on‑site installations and run the instance in operation.
• Customer training and enablement: Train customers across the full STEER® Suite (STEER® Edge, STEER® Gateway and STEER® Management) and its day‑to‑day use, and provide ongoing support as they roll out their fleet.
• Documentation and knowledge base: Write and maintain customer‑facing documentation, including API guides, user guides, a FAQ and an internal and external wiki, so customers and colleagues find answers on their own.
• Technical reference: Act as the operations point of reference for Engineering, Product and Sales. Share knowledge, document recurring issues and help colleagues build their understanding of the system.
• Operational excellence: Maintain lab and demonstration environments, contribute to product testing and release validation, and keep configurations, tickets and operational documentation current.
• Continuous improvement: Develop scripts, tools and reusable procedures, structure the support knowledge base, and turn customer feedback into concrete input for Engineering and Product.

Required Experience And Skills

5+ years of experience in network operations, technical support, field engineering or a similar hands‑on technical role.

• Networking: Strong practical knowledge of TCP/IP, subnetting, routing, switching, VLANs, DNS, DHCP, NAT, firewalls and VPNs; confident troubleshooting of latency, jitter, packet loss and MTU issues.
• Embedded and Debian Linux: Confident administration and troubleshooting, including network configuration, package management, init and systemd services, permissions, logs and resource utilization on constrained devices and servers.
• SD‑WAN and multipath: Understanding of overlay and underlay networks, tunnel establishment, traffic steering, link monitoring, failover and multipath connectivity over any IP transport: cellular (4G/5G), satellite (GEO/LEO), fibre and point‑to‑point (PtP) links.
• Back‑office and cloud: Understanding of how edge devices interact with a central management platform (provisioning, configuration push, monitoring, APIs).
• Virtualization: Experience deploying, configuring and troubleshooting VMs, virtual networking and host resources using platforms such as KVM/QEMU, Proxmox or VMware.
• Expert use of diagnostic tools such as Wireshark, tcpdump, iperf and standard Linux networking utilities.
• Scripting in Bash or Python, ability to read and understand existing code, familiarity with APIs and Git.
• Strong analytical rigour, curiosity and persistence in investigation, with clear ownership of technical issues through to resolution.
• Clear customer communication and structured problem‑solving.
• Professional proficiency in English (French a plus).

Preferred Experience

• Experience with OpenWrt, embedded Linux distributions or edge computing.
• Previous involvement in customer support, technical demonstrations or PoC delivery.

What We Offer

• Strong ownership over Stellar's operations, with direct reporting to the CPTO.
• Hands‑on exposure to a wide range of technologies: embedded Linux, advanced networking, hardware integration, cloud platforms, AI to support your activities, etc.
• Continuous learning in a supportive, expert‑driven engineering team.
• A collaborative, international and multicultural working environment.
• A competitive compensation package.

Location and working model

Based in Bruges (33), near Bordeaux, France, with a hybrid working model and regular office presence for collaboration, equipment preparation and testing.

Occasional travel to customer sites may be required for installations or training sessions.

Your profile is not a 100% match with the description above, but you are interested in our project? Apply anyway. We are primarily looking for people with the right mindset who are willing to learn.