Principal Engineer

Careerwebsite

Reston, Northern (VA, KY)

Hybrid

USD 181,000 - 245,000

Full time

5 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work schedule

Job summary

Verisign is seeking a Principal Engineer based in Reston, VA, to lead the global interconnection strategy, peering, and IP transit activities. The role encompasses IX participation, traffic engineering, and strategic partnerships to optimize performance and cost.

You will influence routing policy, negotiate with network operators, and drive cost reduction while improving resiliency across a global network.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in CS/IT/telecommunication or related field.
15+ years related engineering experience.
7+ years of Internet networking experience.
5+ years of peering, transit, or interconnection experience.
Experience managing relationships with ISPs, carriers, cloud providers, and IX operators.
Proven experience negotiating peering and transit agreements.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute the global peering and interconnection strategy.
Negotiate and manage peering and transit agreements.
Coordinate onboarding and operational support for new peers.
Represent the company at NANOG, RIPE, APRICOT, LACNIC, ARIN, APNIC, and the Global Peering Forum.

Skills

BGP-4 (Border Gateway Protocol)

IPv4

IPv6

Routing protocols

BGP Communities

EVPN

MPLS

OSPF

IS-IS

Traffic engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT / Telecommunications

Tools

PeeringDB

IX platforms

Route Servers

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.

Principal Engineer

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

RPKI
ROA Validation
ASPA
BGPsec
MANRS
IRR Databases
Route Filtering
Prefix Filtering

Monitoring & Analytics

NetFlow
sFlow
IPFIX
SNMP
Telemetry
Traffic Analytics Platforms
Capacity Planning Tools

Cloud & Interconnection Platforms

AWS Direct Connect
Azure ExpressRoute
Google Cloud Interconnect
Oracle FastConnect
Equinix Fabric
Megaport

Business & Commercial Responsibilities

Peering negotiations
Transit contract negotiations
Capacity planning and budgeting
Vendor management
Cost optimization initiatives
SLA management
Risk assessment and mitigation
Executive reporting and forecasting

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Telecommunications, or related field
15+ years related engineering experience
7+ years of Internet networking experience
5+ years of peering, transit, or interconnection experience
Experience managing relationships with ISPs, carriers, cloud providers, and IX operators
Proven experience negotiating peering and transit agreements
Experience operating large-scale global networks

Preferred Certifications

CCNP Service Provider
CCIE Service Provider
JNCIP-SP
JNCIE-SP
AWS Advanced Networking Specialty
MANRS Certification Knowledge
RPKI Deployment Experience

This position is based in our Reston, VA office and offers a hybrid work schedule.

The pay range is $180,700 - $244,500.

The anticipated annual base salary range for this position is noted above, however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience. Verisign offers a discretionary bonus which is based on individual and company performance, and certain roles may be eligible for discretionary stock awards.

Verisign is an equal opportunity employer. That means we recruit, hire, compensate, train, promote, transfer, and administer all terms and conditions of employment without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, protected veteran status, disability, or other protected categories under applicable law.

Additional Information