Lead Network Engineer

Stealth Startup; Lombardia; On-site; EUR 50,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Stealth Startup in Milan, Italy is seeking a Lead Network Engineer to own the inter-pod network and the Kubernetes networking across dispersed sites. You will shape the overall network architecture and drive automation, with a dedicated Fabric Engineer handling intra-pod networks.

The role demands a senior level with prior design authority experience and a track record of multi-site production networks, emphasizing security and reliability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Networking, or equivalent field.
• 6-10 years of hands-on networking in multi-site/edge environments, including time as technical lead or design authority.
• Experience running networking for a production Kubernetes or cloud platform.
• Experience automating network operations as code, at scale.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end network architecture, addressing plan, and design reviews, and make the technology choices.
• Design and operate a resilient, encrypted mesh between sites, with dynamic routing and failover across heterogeneous uplinks.
• Own Kubernetes networking: how workloads are connected, exposed, and isolated inside and across clusters.
• Implement segmentation and tenant isolation according to the policy defined by the Head of Security.
• Own network automation and observability, so every new pod is provisioned and monitored without manual work.
• Support field deployments, write runbooks, and mentor the Fabric Engineer.

Skills

English speaking

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Networking, or equivalent field

Tools

WireGuard

BGP

Cilium/eBPF

Talos

NetBox

Job description

About Us

We are an early-stage technology company operating at the intersection of Energy and AI infrastructure, focused on developing a new generation of efficient and scalable computing infrastructure.

Our approach combines distributed computing, modular infrastructure and energy efficiency to support the rapidly growing demand for AI and high-performance computing.

The company is developing a new model for deploying compute capacity in a flexible and scalable way, with a strong focus on efficiency, sustainability, reliability and responsible infrastructure development.

This is an opportunity to join a growing team at an early stage and contribute directly to the development of a new infrastructure platform, working at the intersection of power, data centers and advanced computing.

Position Type

Part of the Engineering team, reporting to the CTO. Senior role and network design authority, with the Datacenter & HPC Fabric Engineer reporting to you

Role Overview

We are seeking a Lead Network Engineer to own the network between our Pods: self-contained, outdoor-deployable AI/HPC compute systems meshed into sovereign clusters across dispersed sites. You will own the inter-pod network, the connectivity of the workloads running on our Kubernetes platform, and network automation, and set the overall network architecture, while a dedicated Fabric Engineer owns the high-performance network inside the pod. Our lab already runs an encrypted mesh between sites with cellular and satellite backup: these are current choices, not dogma, and we expect you to challenge them.

What You Will Deliver

This is a high-impact, high-ownership role: your design will ship in every unit and every cluster we deploy.

In your first year: You will take the inter-pod network, the cluster networking, and the network automation from lab to production, then validate a multi-pod sovereign mesh on real field deployments: automated, observable, and ready to scale into series deployment.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end network architecture, addressing plan, and design reviews, and make the technology choices
• Design and operate a resilient, encrypted mesh between sites, with dynamic routing and failover across heterogeneous, sometimes constrained uplinks
• Own Kubernetes networking: how workloads are connected, exposed, and isolated inside and across clusters
• Implement segmentation and tenant isolation according to the policy defined by the Head of Security
• Own network automation and observability, so every new pod is provisioned and monitored without manual work
• Support field deployments, write runbooks, and mentor the Fabric Engineer

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Networking, or equivalent field
• 6-10 years of hands-on networking in service-provider, cloud/hosting, or multi-site/edge environments, including time as technical lead or design authority
• A track record of designing and running a production network spanning many sites, with dynamic routing, VPN overlays, and failover
• Experience running networking for a production Kubernetes or cloud platform
• Experience automating network operations as code, at scale
• English speaking

Nice to Have

• Deployments at remote or edge sites with poor or intermittent connectivity
• Experience at a cloud provider, ISP, or operator building its own infrastructure
• Familiarity with our current stack (e.g. WireGuard, BGP, Cilium/eBPF, Talos, NetBox), or strong reasons to propose alternatives
• Prior experience at a hardware or infrastructure startup or scale-up

Salary Expectation

RAL 50.000€ - 100.000€ + equity (The compensation package will be determined based on the candidate's seniority, experience, and level of expertise.)

Location

Milan, Italy. On-site.