Principal Engineer - Network (Remote)

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc.; California; Remote; USD 195,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Market compensation

Wellness programs

Vacation & holidays

Parental leave

Development opportunities

Employee networks

Office culture amenities

Great Place to Work Certified

Job summary

CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. is seeking a senior backbone network architect to own IP/MPLS and optical infrastructure for the company's global backbone, with a focus on scalable, secure connectivity across multi-cloud environments.

You will lead multi-year roadmaps, set IaC and automation strategy, mentor engineers, and collaborate with vendors and stakeholders to align network growth with business needs. U.S. citizenship or green card required.

Qualifications

• 12+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale backbone networks.
• Experience with global-scale network architecture and senior escalation responsibilities.

Responsibilities

• Own platform selection for routing and optical hardware.
• Set direction for network automation and IaC (Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD, GitOps).
• Mentor senior engineers and raise technical standards.

Skills

IS-IS

MP-BGP

SR-MPLS/SRv6

MPLS-TE

VRFs

DDoS mitigation

CDN

DWDM

Coherent optics

Cloud networking

IaC

AI in networking

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS, MIS or related

Tools

Juniper

Infinera

Nokia

Arista

Cisco

Job description

As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn't changed - we’re here to stop breaches, and we've redefined modern security with the world's most advanced AI-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day and this traffic is growing daily. Our customers span all industries, and they count on CrowdStrike to keep their businesses running, their communities safe and their lives moving forward. We're proud to work for a mission-driven company leveraging AI to transform the way we work. CrowdStrikers drive their careers through flexibility and autonomy while also being expected to contribute to a culture of responsible AI adoption, experimentation, and innovation. We use an AI-first mindset as a force multiplier to proactively and continuously accelerate execution, build expertise, uncover insights, and solve complex problems. We're always looking to add talented CrowdStrikers to the team who have limitless passion, a relentless focus on innovation and a fanatical commitment to our customers, our community and each other. Ready to join a mission that matters? The future of cybersecurity starts with you.

About the Role:

You will own the IP and optical architecture for CrowdStrike's global backbone, including connectivity to traditional and neocloud providers. You'll set the multi-year roadmap governing its evolution, including traffic engineering strategy, capacity planning, and demand forecasting for the network as a whole. You'll drive the initiatives that matter most to the business, from funding case through implementation and long-term operational stewardship, and act as the senior escalation resource in the 24x7 on-call rotation when an incident exceeds the depth of the engineers already on it.

What You’ll Do:

• You’ll own platform selection for routing and optical hardware, working directly with vendor engineering teams to influence their roadmaps, and engage director- and VP-level stakeholders across datacenter, application, and business teams to keep network strategy ahead of the company's growth.
• You’ll set the direction for network automation and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD, GitOps), and for telemetry and analytics strategy, increasingly including frontier and open-weight AI models for tasks like telemetry analysis and automated triage, with sensitive backbone data kept in-house.
• Part of the role is raising the technical bar of the organization: reviewing senior engineers' designs, setting the standards they build against, and mentoring them toward this level.

What You’ll Need:

• US Citizenship or Green Card holder status
• 12+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale backbone networks, with ownership of architecture at global scale
• Deep expertise in IP/MPLS core technologies: IS-IS, MP-BGP, segment routing (SR-MPLS/SRv6), PE/P architectures, MPLS-TE, VRFs, DDoS mitigation, CDN
• Deep expertise in optical transport: DWDM, coherent optics (400G/800G), ROADM architectures, amplifier design (EDFA/Raman), dispersion management, alien wavelengths
• Strong grounding in cloud networking: direct connectivity, multi-cloud routing, and hybrid cloud at scale across major hyperscalers (AWS, GCP, OCI, Azure) and neoclouds (e.g., CoreWeave, Cerebras)
• Working depth in adjacent infrastructure domains (virtualization, containers, databases, message queuing, large-scale provisioning) sufficient to architect across boundaries
• Proven ability to set, not just execute, network automation and IaC strategy
• Familiarity with applying frontier and open-weight AI models to network operations (e.g., telemetry analysis, automated triage, ChatOps tooling), including self-hosting open-weight models where data sensitivity requires it
• Experience operating or architecting networks within FedRAMP-authorized environments
• Track record of selecting, testing, and deploying networking hardware and software organization-wide, across major vendors (Juniper, Infinera, Nokia, Arista, Cisco, etc.)
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Proven experience utilizing AI technologies to enhance decision-making, streamline workflows and processes, improve efficiency and drive business outcomes.
• #LI-LY1

Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike:

• Market leader in compensation and equity awards
• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs
• Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge
• Paid parental and adoption leaves
• Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role
• Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections
• Vibrant office culture with world class amenities
• Great Place to Work Certified across the globe

CrowdStrike is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging where everyone is valued for who they are and empowered to succeed.

We support veterans and individuals with disabilities through our affirmative action program.

CrowdStrike is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment.

The Company does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy or pregnancy-related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical disability (including HIV and AIDS), mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We base all employment decisions--including recruitment, selection, training, compensation, benefits, discipline, promotions, transfers, lay-offs, return from lay-off, terminations and social/recreational programs--on valid job requirements.

CrowdStrike participates in the E-Verify program. Notice of E-Verify Participation

Right to Work CrowdStrike, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.

Placement within the pay range is dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications, job level, supervisory status, and location.

The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $195,000 - $290,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off.

For detailed information about the U.S. benefits package, please click here.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 to fix a fundamental problem: The sophisticated attacks that were forcing the world's leading businesses into the headlines could not be solved with existing malware-based defenses. Founder George Kurtz realized that a brand new approach was needed - one that combines the most advanced endpoint protection with expert intelligence to pinpoint the adversaries perpetrating the attacks, not just the malware. There's much more to the story of how Falcon has redefined endpoint protection but there's only one thing to remember about CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.