Principal Engineer

Verisign; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Verisign seeks a Principal Engineer to lead the global interconnection strategy, overseeing settlement-free peering, paid peering, IP transit, and IX participation. The role focuses on traffic engineering, routing policy, and strategic relationships with network operators, cloud providers, and RIRs.

The ideal candidate combines deep networking expertise with strong business negotiation skills and industry engagement to improve network performance, reduce transit costs, and enhance resiliency for

Qualifications

• Strong technical networking expertise and industry engagement experience.
• Business negotiation skills for interconnection deals and contracts.
• Experience with global IX, peering, transit, and traffic optimization.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the global peering and interconnection strategy.
• Negotiate and manage settlement-free, bilateral, multilateral, public, and private peering.
• Coordinate IX operations, cross-connect provisioning, and port upgrades.
• Manage global transit providers, capacity planning, and cost optimization.
• Define routing policies and optimize traffic across peering, transit, and IX fabrics.
• Represent Verisign at NANOG, RIPE, APRICOT, and other industry forums.

Skills

Peering strategy

Negotiation

Routing protocols

BGP

Traffic engineering

Job description

Verisign helps enable the security, stability, and resiliency of the internet. We are a trusted provider of internet infrastructure services for the networked world and deliver unmatched performance in domain name system (DNS) services.

We are a mission focused, values driven company where each individual can contribute to building a stronger, more secure internet. We offer a dynamic and flexible work environment with competitive benefits and the ability to grow your career.

The Principal Engineer is responsible for developing, managing, and optimizing the organization’s global Internet interconnection strategy. This role oversees settlement-free peering, paid peering, IP transit, Internet Exchange (IX) participation, traffic engineering, routing policy, and strategic relationships with network operators, content providers, cloud providers, carriers, and Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

The ideal candidate possesses strong technical networking expertise, business negotiation skills, and industry engagement experience to improve network performance, reduce transit costs, increase resiliency, and support the company’s global connectivity objectives.

Responsibilities:

Interconnection Strategy

• Develop and execute the global peering and interconnection strategy
• Identify opportunities to expand peering relationships and optimize transit utilization
• Drive network growth through strategic partnerships with ISPs, cloud providers, content networks, CDNs, carriers, and hyperscalers
• Evaluate new IX opportunities and regional expansion initiatives
• Establish KPIs for traffic offload, cost reduction, latency improvements, and resiliency

Peering Management

• Negotiate and manage:
  • Settlement-Free Peering
  • Bilateral Peering
  • Multilateral Peering
  • Public Peering
  • Private Peering
• Maintain peering policies and qualification requirements
• Manage relationships through:
  • PeeringDB
  • IX communities
  • Industry forums
  • Network operator groups
• Coordinate onboarding and operational support for new peers
• Resolve peering disputes, routing issues, and traffic imbalances

Internet Exchange (IX) Operations

• Manage participation across global Internet Exchanges
• Evaluate IX performance and ROI
• Coordinate provisioning of:
  • Cross-connects
  • Port upgrades
  • New exchange deployments
• Develop business cases for new IX expansion
• Maintain relationships with IX operators and executive leadership

IP Transit Management

• Manage global transit providers and carrier relationships
• Conduct transit capacity planning
• Negotiate contracts and pricing
• Evaluate transit performance and redundancy requirements
• Develop strategies to reduce transit costs through increased peering
• Monitor traffic shifts between transit and peering environments

Routing & Traffic Engineering

• Define and maintain routing policies
• Optimize traffic flows across:
  • Peering
  • Transit
  • IX fabrics
  • Private interconnections
• Manage traffic engineering initiatives using:
  • BGP communities
  • Local Preference
  • MED
  • AS Path Prepending
• Analyze traffic patterns and forecast growth
• Improve latency, packet loss, and path optimization

Industry Engagement

• Represent the company at:
  • NANOG
  • RIPE
  • APRICOT
  • LACNIC
  • ARIN
  • APNIC
  • Global Peering Forum
• Build executive-level relationships across the Internet ecosystem
• Participate in policy discussions and industry working groups
• Monitor industry trends affecting interconnection and Internet governance

Cross-Functional Leaderships

• Partner with:
  • Network Engineering
  • Infrastructure Operations
  • Security
  • Product Management
  • Legal
  • Procurement
  • Finance
• Develop executive reporting and dashboards
• Present interconnection strategy and performance metrics to senior leadership

Required Technical Expertise

Routing Protocols

• BGP-4 (Border Gateway Protocol)
• eBGP
• iBGP
• Route Reflectors
• Confederations
• BGP Communities
• Large Communities
• Flowspec

Core Internet Protocols

• IPv4
• IPv6
• ICMP
• TCP/IP
• UDP
• MPLS

Routing Technologies

• OSPF
• IS-IS
• Segment Routing
• EVPN
• VXLAN

Internet Infrastructure

• Internet Exchanges (IX)
• Route Servers
• Route Collectors
• CDN Architectures
• Anycast
• DNS Infrastructure
• DDoS Mitigation Architectures
• Content Delivery Networks

Routing Security