Principal Engineer, Software Defined Networking

GB04 NVIDIA Development UK Limited; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

NVIDIA Corporation is seeking a Principal System Software Engineer, Software Defined Networking, to design, build, and operate scalable SDN solutions for its AI Cloud platforms hosting GPU workloads. You will drive end‑to‑end SDN stack development, observability, and production readiness across large multi‑node environments.

You will work on control and data plane software, contribute to open‑source projects, and own CI/CD pipelines with GitOps for secure cloud infrastructure.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related field.
• 15+ years in software development for large‑scale distributed environments.
• Expert in OVN, OVS, OpenFlow and modern network protocols.
• Strong C and Go programming; Bash and Python scripting.
• Deep Kubernetes experience with CNIs (OVN‑Kubernetes).
• IaC and deployment tools (Ansible, Terraform, ArgoCD, Flux).
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows.
• Secure, high‑performance services using gRPC/REST with TLS.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop next‑gen multi‑tenant cloud SDN control and data plane software (OVS/OVN/OpenFlow).
• Build IaaS network orchestration using gRPC and REST for tenant SLAs.
• Contribute upstream to OVN‑Kubernetes and related projects.
• Develop software for network observability including telemetry and dashboards.
• Operate OVS‑OVN based SDN solutions at scale in NVIDIA AI Cloud.
• Own end‑to‑end observability with monitoring, tracing and dashboards.
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines across Linux host networking and CNIs.
• Implement GitOps for secure cloud integration.
• Collaborate with SRE/DevOps and network engineering for production readiness.

Skills

C

Go

Bash

Python

Kubernetes

gRPC

REST

OpenFlow

OVS

OVN

IaC

CI/CD

TLS

Observability

Education

BSc/MSc in Computer Science

Tools

Prometheus

Grafana

Jaeger

OpenTelemetry

ELK

Ansible

Terraform

ArgoCD

Flux

Job description

We are looking for a Principal System Software Engineer, Software Defined Networking to design, build, and operate highly performant and scalable SDN solutions for NVIDIA's AI Clouds hosting GPU-accelerated workloads — including hyperscale multi-node training, inference, cloud gaming, and cloud functions. This role spans the full lifecycle of our SDN stack — from designing and developing new control and data plane software to ensuring operational excellence in production through reliability engineering, CI/CD, observability, and incident response.

What you'll be doing:

• Design and develop next‑generation multi‑tenant cloud SDN control and data plane software (OVS, OVN, OpenFlow)
• Build Infrastructure‑as‑a‑Service virtual network orchestration and services using gRPC and REST to support tenant workload security and performance SLAs for BMaaS, VMaaS, and Kubernetes
• Drive upstream contributions to OVN‑Kubernetes and related open‑source projects
• Develop software for network observability — monitoring, telemetry, intelligent metering, and performance analysis
• Operate and support OVS-OVN based SDN solutions in large‑scale NVIDIA AI Cloud environments
• Own end‑to‑end observability for the SDN stack — build and maintain monitoring, alerting, distributed tracing, and dashboarding to ensure real‑time insight into network health, performance, and tenant SLAs
• Design, enhance, and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab) across Linux host networking, OVS, OVN, and Kubernetes CNIs
• Implement GitOps approaches or related experience for secure, seamless integration with cloud infrastructure
• Collaborate with SRE, DevOps, and network engineering teams on production readiness and operational tooling

What we need to see:

• BS/MS in Computer Science or related technical field, or a comparable blend of education and relevant experience
• 15+ years of proven experience in software development for large‑scale distributed environments
• Expert‑level knowledge of OVN, OVS, OpenFlow, and modern network protocols
• Strong programming skills in C and Go; advanced scripting in Bash and Python
• Deep knowledge of Kubernetes, practical experience deploying and supporting CNIs (OVN‑Kubernetes)
• Hands‑on experience with Infrastructure‑as‑Code and deployment tools (Ansible, Terraform, ArgoCD, Flux)
• Experience designing and operating complex, multi‑stage CI/CD pipelines
• Hands‑on experience developing secure, high‑performance services using gRPC and REST with TLS and strong authentication
• Strong knowledge of datacenter routing, switching, and Linux host/VM networking

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

• Contributions to open‑source projects (especially OVS, OVN, OVS‑Kubernetes, or other Kubernetes networking projects)
• Experience with hardware acceleration (GPU, DPU or equivalent experience) for networking
• Practical experience with major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid/multi‑cloud deployments
• SRE/DevOps top‑level expertise — on‑call, incident management, operations focused on service reliability targets, production ownership
• Experience with observability platforms and tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry, ELK)

NVIDIA pioneered accelerated computing. Today, our AI infrastructure powers global intelligence, transforming every industry. Learn more about NVIDIA.