Senior IP/MPLS Backbone Engineer & Automation Leader

Socket.dev; United States; Remote; USD 132,000 - 194,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Life insurance

Wellbeing benefits

Job summary

Lumen is seeking a Senior Lead Network Engineer to drive design, manufacturing, and certification of IP/MPLS backbones. You will lead complex routing projects, define standards, and mentor engineers while collaborating with Architecture, Operations, Product, and Vendors to deliver scalable network solutions.

The role emphasizes automation, testing, and modernization with a strong focus on performance, security, and resilience in a large-scale service provider environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or related field
• 10+ years of experience in network engineering, IP routing, telecommunications, or service provider environments
• 8+ years with Master's degree
• Expert knowledge of BGP, IS-IS, OSPF, MPLS, RSVP, LDP, IPv4/IPv6
• Experience with Juniper MX/PTX and Nokia 7750/7250
• Experience developing automation solutions using Python
• Experience managing network infrastructure through Ansible and Infrastructure‑as‑Code
• Experience with network APIs, data modeling, telemetry, and automation frameworks
• Experience with Linux environments, Git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills in large-scale networks
• Excellent written and verbal communication to influence technical strategy

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, engineering, certification, and deployment of IP/MPLS backbone network technologies and services
• Develop and maintain network architecture standards, documentation, and guidelines
• Serve as technical lead for strategic routing, transport, automation, security, and platform evolution
• Design and troubleshoot large-scale routing environments using BGP, IS-IS, OSPF, MPLS, RSVP-TE, LDP, Segment Routing
• Develop automation solutions using Python and Ansible to improve deployment, validation, and operations
• Build and maintain automation frameworks, tooling, APIs, and testing platforms
• Perform network certifications, interoperability testing, and vendor evaluations
• Collaborate with operations to resolve routing, convergence and service delivery issues
• Define engineering requirements and evaluate alternative technical solutions
• Develop technical standards for multiple vendor platforms (Juniper, Nokia, Cisco)
• Lead technology scouting, innovation, and lab testing for next-generation networking
• Provide mentorship to engineering teams as SME for routing, transport, and automation
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement network initiatives
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering processes, documentation, and readiness
• Support modernization initiatives including automation, cloud integration, telemetry, and IAC

Skills

IP routing

BGP/IS-IS/OSPF

Routing policy & traffic engineering

Network leadership

Python

Ansible

Linux

Git/GitHub

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering/IT or related field

Master's degree

Tools

Juniper MX/PTX

Nokia 7750/7250

Python

Ansible

Linux environments

Git/GitHub

CI/CD

Job description

Lumen is seeking a Senior Lead Network Engineer to drive design, manufacturing, and certification of IP/MPLS backbones. You will lead complex routing projects, define standards, and mentor engineers while collaborating with Architecture, Operations, Product, and Vendors to deliver scalable network solutions.

The role emphasizes automation, testing, and modernization with a strong focus on performance, security, and resilience in a large-scale service provider environment.