Senior Network Engineer – Trading Infrastructure

Virtual Tech Gurus; Whippany (NJ); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Virtual Tech Gurus is seeking an experienced network engineer to lead a weekend-driven refresh of Arista switches across exchange co-location environments, with zero-downtime requirements and close collaboration with the EMEA regional manager.

You will plan, configure, validate BGP and multicast, perform staging and cutover, and coordinate with exchanges, data centers, and engineering teams to deliver reliable, high-performance trading networks.

Qualifications

• Arista 7150/7060/7130 switching experience required.
• Low-latency financial/market network experience preferred.
• Experience with end-of-life switch migrations and hardware refreshes.
• Strong Layer 2/3 switching skills including BGP and multicast.
• Data center or co-location environments experience.
• Ability to execute changes with limited downtime and weekend windows.

Responsibilities

• Execute replacement and migration of ~60 end-of-life Arista/Cisco switches across exchange co-location environments.
• Configure and validate customized switch settings within limited change windows.
• Manage external connectivity to exchanges and extranet environments.
• Configure and troubleshoot BGP and multicast routing in live trading networks.
• Ensure zero-downtime delivery across migration activities.
• Coordinate with exchanges, external parties, and internal engineering teams.

Skills

Arista switching

Low-latency networks

Migration experience

BGP

Multicast

Data center / co-location

Weekend support

Job description

Latest Update:

• Looking to bring someone in to help execute roughly 50 Arista 7150 end-of-life switch refreshes across their markets/co-location environment. The replacement hardware is already available. The person needs to own the migrations from planning through cutover.

The job involves:

• Arista 7150/7060/7130 environments
• Low-latency financial/market-data networks
• BGP and Layer 3 routing
• Multicast, PIM/SSM, IGMP
• Physical switch/cabling migrations
• Staging and configuration
• Change management and approvals
• End-user communication
• Data center operations coordination
• Friday night/Saturday production cutovers
• Pre/post migration validation
• Troubleshooting and rollback

Must-Have Skills

• Arista switching experience — specifically Arista 7150, 7060, and/or 7130
• Low-latency financial/market network experience
• Network hardware refresh / migration experience — taking an end-of-life switch out and replacing it with a newer platform
• Layer 2 & Layer 3 switching
• BGP — configuration, peering, route advertisement, route validation
• Multicast networking — particularly PIM, SSM, and IGMP
• Market-data / trading network experience in financial services or co-location environments
• Production network cutovers/migrations with minimal downtime
• Pre- and post-migration validation — routing, interfaces, errors, traffic, reachability, BGP, etc.
• Change management — raising changes, obtaining approvals, coordinating migration windows
• Data center / co-location experience
• Hands-on cabling/physical migration experience — SFP/QSFP, optics, breakout cables, moving physical connections
• Migration planning and rollback planning
• Weekend/off-hours production support — Friday nights/Saturdays due to market-hour restrictions
• Strong communication with end users, data center operations, and engineering teams

Strongly Preferred

• Arista 7130 experience, particularly the low-latency/multicast use cases
• Arista 7060 experience
• Cisco/Juniper to Arista migrations
• Financial trading / market-data environments
• VXLAN familiarity
• Ansible or automated pre/post migration validation
• Firewall migration experience — Palo Alto, Juniper, Fortinet

Description:

• This role supports a network refresh program replacing approximately 60 end-of-life switches (Arista 7150 and Cisco) across exchange co-location environments supporting mission-critical trading infrastructure. Work is executed within strictly limited weekend change windows with zero-downtime requirements. The engineer will work alongside the EMEA Regional Manager (London-based), operating at pace, adapting quickly to unexpected changes, and executing with precision and independence.

Key Responsibilities

• Execute replacement and migration of ~60 end-of-life Arista 7150 and Cisco switches across exchange co-location environments
• Apply and validate customized switch configurations accurately within limited change windows
• Manage and maintain external connectivity to exchanges and extranet environments
• Configure and troubleshoot BGP and multicast routing in live trading environments
• Ensure zero-downtime delivery across all migration and change activity
• Resolve complex network issues independently with minimal escalation
• Liaise directly with exchanges, external parties, and internal engineering teams at a technical level

Mandatory Requirements

• Availability to work every weekend for change window execution
• Financial services/trading industry experience — exchange or co-location environments strongly preferred
• Hands-on Arista experience, including the 7150 series
• Firewall experience in complex network environments
• Extranet connectivity experience
• Strong BGP and multicast knowledge in production environments
• Proven ability to troubleshoot complex issues under pressure
• Zero-downtime migration experience
• Strong technical communication skills, internal and external

Desirable Skills

• Packet capture and analysis
• Syslog analysis
• Corvil latency analysis tools