Staff Network Backbone & Edge Engineer

Nscale; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Flexible work

Job summary

Nscale is hiring a Staff Network Backbone & Edge Engineer to design, deploy, operate, and maintain the backbone and edge infrastructure connecting our GPU compute facilities with enterprise customers across a global network.

This deeply hands-on role spans inter-site transport, WAN edge routing, wavelength services, IP transit, and carrier peering. You’ll work with carriers, colocation teams, and regional networks to ensure performance and reliability.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on network engineering experience, focusing on backbone/edge/transport infrastructure.
• Strong knowledge of Nokia SR routing platforms and BGP.
• Experience with carrier-grade networks, hyperscale/cloud environments, and inter-site transport.

Responsibilities

• Deploy, configure and maintain backbone/edge equipment and 400G/800G wavelength services.
• Coordinate with carriers on circuit delivery, testing and acceptance.
• Manage IP transit, peering and edge routing policies; monitor performance and respond to incidents.
• Lead validation, testing and documentation of backbone infrastructure and changes.

Skills

Backbone & edge networking

BGP & routing

Nokia SR Series

Optical transport

WAN & transport

Network automation (Python)

Tools

Nokia SR Series routers

Job description

About Nscale

Nscale is the GPU cloud engineered for AI. We provide cost-effective, high-performance infrastructure for AI start-ups and large enterprise customers. Nscale enables AI-focused companies to achieve superior results by reducing the complexity of AI development. Our GPU cloud bolsters technical capabilities and directly supports strategic business outcomes, including cost management, rapid innovation, and environmental responsibility.

About Nscale

Nscale is the GPU cloud engineered for AI. We provide cost-effective, high-performance infrastructure for AI start-ups and large enterprise customers. Nscale enables AI-focused companies to achieve superior results by reducing the complexity of AI development. Our GPU cloud bolsters technical capabilities and directly supports strategic business outcomes, including cost management, rapid innovation, and environmental responsibility.
At Nscale, our AI Infrastructure team plays a critical role in building and operating the high-performance network infrastructure that connects our GPU cloud platform, data centres, customers, and global partners.
We thrive on a culture of relentless innovation, ownership, and accountability, where every team member takes pride in their work and drives it with excellence and urgency. As an Nscaler, you'll build trust through openness and transparency, where everyone is inspired to do their best work. If you join our team, you'll be contributing to building the technology that powers the future.

About The Role

We are hiring a Staff Network Backbone & Edge Engineer to help design, deploy, operate, and maintain Nscale's backbone and edge infrastructure — the carrier-grade transport layer connecting our GPU compute facilities with enterprise customers across our global network.

This is a deeply hands‑on engineering role with ownership spanning inter-site transport, WAN edge routing, wavelength services, Internet transit, public and private peering, and carrier circuit delivery.

You’ll work as part of our regional network team and act as a subject matter expert across backbone and edge technologies. You’ll be equally comfortable commissioning a new backbone node, troubleshooting complex BGP routing issues, responding to service incidents, validating optical connectivity, and working directly with carriers on circuit delivery and technical escalations.

This role is ideal for an experienced network engineer who enjoys operating across the full networking stack — from the physical and optical layers through WAN transport and Internet edge.

What you'll be doing

Backbone & Network Edge

• Deploy, configure, and maintain Nokia SR Series routers across Nscale's backbone and edge network.
• Configure and operate BGP peering, IP/MPLS, VRFs, IPv6, routing policies, and traffic engineering.
• Commission and test 400G/800G wavelength services between backbone nodes.
• Coordinate with carriers and colocation teams on circuit delivery, optical acceptance testing, and service validation.
• Manage IP transit and peering configurations at edge locations, ensuring appropriate capacity and consistent customer performance.
• Maintain BGP community policies, AS management, prefix announcements, and DDoS mitigation configurations across regional edge nodes.

Optical & Physical Infrastructure

• Accept and validate wavelength services at carrier demarcation points.
• Conduct optical power budget analysis, OTDR testing, and end-to-end circuit verification.
• Manage intra-site fibre infrastructure, optical patching, and interface connectivity at backbone colocation sites.
• Coordinate with colocation providers on cross-connect delivery and physical infrastructure for backbone deployments.
• Maintain accurate physical‑layer documentation, including fibre records, optical test results, and as‑built documentation.

Testing & Validation

• Execute structured test plans for backbone node commissioning, circuit delivery, and service activation.
• Perform optical, IP‑layer, and end-to-end service validation.
• Conduct regression and smoke testing following maintenance windows, software upgrades, and configuration changes.
• Develop and maintain standardised test plans and acceptance criteria for backbone infrastructure.
• Document test results, acceptance sign‑offs, and validation records in line with Nscale's operational standards.

Network Operations & Reliability

• Monitor backbone performance using network management, observability, and telemetry tooling.
• Proactively identify and resolve network degradation, capacity constraints, and routing anomalies.
• Act as a Tier 3+ escalation point for complex backbone and WAN edge incidents.
• Support incident response and troubleshooting across backbone and connectivity services.
• Manage scheduled maintenance, capacity audits, and preventive maintenance across regional backbone infrastructure.

Carrier & Supplier Engagement

• Own technical relationships with wavelength providers, colocation partners, and IP transit carriers.
• Coordinate circuit delivery, activation, performance management, and technical escalations.
• Work directly with carrier engineering teams to troubleshoot and resolve complex service issues.
• Support carrier procurement activities by providing technical input into RFQs, circuit specifications, capacity requirements, and supplier evaluations.

About You

Required Experience

• 5+ years of hands‑on network engineering experience, with a focus on backbone, Internet edge, WAN, or transport infrastructure.
• Proven experience working with Nokia SR routing platforms.
• Strong hands‑on knowledge of BGP, traffic engineering, service segmentation, IP transit, and Internet edge architecture.
• Experience working within carrier‑grade, hyperscale, cloud, ISP, or large‑scale data centre network environments.
• Experience working directly with carriers and colocation providers on circuit delivery and technical escalations.
• Ability to operate independently across technical domains spanning the physical layer, optical transport, WAN, and Internet edge.

Optical & Transport Expertise

• Hands‑on experience with 400G/800G coherent optical transport and wavelength services.
• Experience conducting optical acceptance testing and link budget analysis.
• Proficiency with optical testing equipment, including OTDRs, optical power meters, and optical spectrum analysers.
• Strong understanding of fibre infrastructure, cross‑connects, wavelength services, and carrier demarcation.

Networking & Automation

• Strong understanding of BGP, IP/MPLS, IPv6, VRFs, routing policy, traffic engineering, and DDoS mitigation.
• Familiarity with network automation tooling such as Python, Ansible, and Terraform.
• Experience with network monitoring, telemetry, and observability platforms.
• Comfortable working in Linux environments and using Git‑based workflows.

Preferred Experience

• Regional carrier ecosystem knowledge across EMEA.
• Experience working within hyperscale, cloud, telecommunications, ISP, or AI infrastructure environments.
• Experience supporting high‑capacity backbone networks and mission‑critical connectivity.
• Exposure to automated network provisioning and Network-as-Code practices.

Personal Attributes

• Deeply technical and comfortable remaining hands‑on.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical problem‑solving skills.
• Calm and methodical when responding to complex incidents.
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• Comfortable working independently while collaborating across global teams.
• Excellent communication skills when working with engineering teams, carriers, vendors, and internal stakeholders.
• Curious and motivated to continuously improve network performance, reliability, and operational practices.

What we can offer you

At Nscale, you'll find a collaborative, supportive, and innovative environment where your contributions spark real impact. We're building something extraordinary, and we want you at the core.

Highly competitive package (base + equity) with reviews every 12 months.

Join one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies — your opportunity to build and operate the high-capacity network infrastructure connecting the next generation of AI.

Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by taking ownership of critical network infrastructure, solving complex engineering challenges, and helping scale Nscale's global backbone and edge network.

Human-First Flexibility: We treat you as humans first. Our flexible workplace trusts Nscalers to deliver, giving you the autonomy to shape your day around life's moments.

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.

If there's anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

The responsibilities outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and are intended to provide a general overview of the position. The employee may be required to perform additional duties, tasks, and responsibilities as assigned by management, consistent with the skills and qualifications required for the role.

For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: Here.