Senior Lead Network Architect - AI-Driven & Large-Scale

Lumen; City of Albany (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Lumen is hiring a Senior Lead Network Architect to design resilient, scalable Internet, MPLS core, VPN edge, and Metro Ethernet networks. You will drive routing, switching, and transport architecture, while advancing network automation, telemetry, and AI-enabled operations for reliability and efficiency.

You will lead cross-functional architecture decisions, collaborate with IP, Optical/Transport, security, and software teams, and guide POCs and platform selections.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of architecture and engineering experience in large-scale carrier networks.
• Deep expertise in IGP, BGP, MPLS, multicast, VPN, and traffic-engineering technologies.
• Hands-on experience with production network automation and telemetry using Python, Ansible, NETCONF/YANG, RESTCONF, gNMI, gRPC and APIs.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and evolution of resilient, scalable Internet, MPLS core, VPN edge, and Metro Ethernet networks.
• Develop architecture standards and roadmaps for routing, switching, MPLS, multicast, carrier Ethernet, merchant-silicon platforms, optics, and high‑speed interfaces.
• Design and govern network automation using model-driven interfaces, open APIs, infrastructure as code, reusable service models, automated testing.
• Design and develop streaming telemetry and observability solutions for network health, performance, capacity, service‑level assurance, and compliance.
• Design and develop event‑driven and closed‑loop workflows for provisioning, validation, anomaly response, and remediation.
• Evaluate and apply AI‑enabled capabilities for anomaly detection, predictive analytics, capacity forecasting, incident correlation, root‑cause analysis, and guided operations.
• Lead proof‑of‑concepts, technical and economic evaluations, platform selection, and cross‑functional architecture decisions.
• Provide technical leadership across IP, Optical/Transport, operations, security, data, and software engineering teams.

Skills

IGP & BGP expertise

MPLS & VPN technologies

Routing & Switching

Communication & negotiation

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/CS/Math

Tools

Python

Ansible

NETCONF/YANG

RESTCONF

gNMI

gRPC

APIs

Automation testing

Job description

Lumen is hiring a Senior Lead Network Architect to design resilient, scalable Internet, MPLS core, VPN edge, and Metro Ethernet networks. You will drive routing, switching, and transport architecture, while advancing network automation, telemetry, and AI-enabled operations for reliability and efficiency.

You will lead cross-functional architecture decisions, collaborate with IP, Optical/Transport, security, and software teams, and guide POCs and platform selections.