Staff Front-End Network Engineer

Nscale; Houston, New York, San Francisco, Seattle (TX, NY, CA, WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Nscale is seeking a Staff Front End Network Engineer – AI Infrastructure to provide technical leadership for our high-performance frontend networking domain. You will own reliability, scalability, and operational excellence across Ethernet leaf-spine fabrics supporting inference traffic, cluster management, and storage connectivity.

You will mentor senior engineers, drive cross-team initiatives, and influence design choices across Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS, and Nokia platforms while partnering

Qualifications

• 10–12+ years of experience in network engineering in hyperscale data center, cloud, or AI infra environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with large-scale Ethernet fabrics (leaf-spine/Clos).
• Production expertise with Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS and/or Nokia platforms at scale.
• Deep knowledge of data center routing/control planes (BGP, OSPF, ECMP, EVPN-VXLAN).
• Experience with long-haul circuits, DCI, and optical transport.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical direction and initiatives across front-end AI infrastructructure networks.
• Design and evolve large-scale Ethernet leaf-spine/Clos architectures.
• Serve as escalation point for complex front-end network incidents.
• Drive cross-team efforts to improve fabric reliability and observability.
• Define engineering standards for hardware configuration, routing, and firmware lifecycle across multiple platforms.
• Partner with SRE, Compute Platform, Storage, and Network Architecture teams.
• Mentor senior engineers and promote technical excellence.
• Deliver measurable improvements in uptime, latency, and capacity.

Skills

Hyperscale networking

Enterprise networking

BGP/OSPF/EVPN-VXLAN

Ethernet fabrics

NVIDIA Cumulus

Arista EOS

Nokia platforms

Tools

Python

Ansible

Job description

Houston; New York; San Francisco; Seattle; US

About Nscale

Nscale is the GPU cloud engineered for AI. We provide cost-effective, high-performance infrastructure for AI start-ups and large enterprise customers. Nscale enables AI-focused companies to achieve superior results by reducing the complexity of AI development. Our GPU cloud strengthens technical capabilities and directly supports strategic business outcomes, including cost management, rapid innovation, and environmental responsibility.

We thrive on a culture of relentless innovation, ownership, and accountability, where every team member takes pride in their work and drives it with excellence and urgency. As an Nscaler, you’ll build trust through openness and transparency, where everyone is inspired to do their best work. If you join our team, you’ll be contributing to building the technology that powers the future.

About The Role

The Network Operations and Engineering teams at Nscale operate some of the most demanding networking environments in the industry, supporting large-scale AI GPU clusters where network performance directly impacts customer outcomes.

We’re looking for aStaff Front End Network Engineer – AI Infrastructureto provide deep technical leadership within Nscale’s front-end networking domain.

This role focuses on owning and evolving the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of our high-performance Ethernet front-end networks. These networks support inference traffic, cluster management, data ingress/egress, shared storage connectivity, long-haul circuits, and carrier handoffs.

You will act as a key technical leader and domain expert, driving architecture decisions, improving operational practices, and helping solve the most complex networking challenges in the front-end network stack. While not the ultimate technical authority, you will significantly influence design direction and cross-team outcomes.

What You’ll Be Doing

Leading technical direction and operational improvements for Nscale’s front-end AI infrastructure networks within your domain

Designing, reviewing, and evolving large-scale Ethernet leaf-spine / Clos fabric architectures (Arista and Nokia platforms) to support growth, inference workloads, and storage requirements

Serving as a senior escalation point for complex front-end network incidents and driving deep technical root cause analysis and remediation

Driving cross-team initiatives to improve fabric reliability, performance consistency, observability, and operational maturity

Defining and evolving engineering standards for hardware configuration, routing, congestion management, firmware lifecycle, automation, and change safety across Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS, and Nokia platforms

Partnering with SRE, Compute Platform, Storage, and Network Architecture teams to influence end-to-end system design, including DCI and storage networking integration

Mentoring senior engineers and contributing to the growth of technical excellence across the organization

Delivering measurable improvements in uptime, latency consistency, capacity efficiency, and incident reduction for front-end services

About You (Skills / Qualifications)

10–12+ years of experience in network engineering, with a strong focus on hyperscale data center, cloud, or AI infrastructure networking

Deep hands-on experience with large-scale Ethernet data center fabrics (leaf-spine / Clos topologies)

Strong production expertise with Nvidia (Cumulus), Arista EOS, and/or Nokia platforms at scale

Solid understanding of data center routing and control planes (BGP, OSPF, ECMP, EVPN-VXLAN)

Experience with long-haul circuits, DCI, and optical transport (dark fiber, carrier Ethernet, coherent optics, ZR/ZR+)

Strong understanding of storage networking over Ethernet in large-scale environments

Ability to debug and resolve complex cross-layer issues across hardware, optics, routing, and application layers

Proven ability to lead technical initiatives across teams and influence outcomes without formal authority

Strong systems thinking, balancing performance, reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency

Nice to Have

Experience operating Arista, Nokia, or Nvidia networking platforms at hyperscale

Familiarity with AI infrastructure network design patterns (inference, management, storage tiers)

Exposure to DCI / long-haul optical or carrier network design and operations

Strong automation experience (Python, Ansible, telemetry pipelines, validation frameworks)

Experience contributing to infrastructure strategy or large-scale platform improvements

What We Can Offer You

At Nscale, you'll find a collaborative, supportive, and innovative environment where your contributions create real impact. We're building something extraordinary, and we want you at the core.

Highly competitive package (base + equity) with annual reviews

Opportunity to join a fast-growing AI infrastructure company and work on cutting-edge systems

A progression path tailored to your growth, with opportunities to lead, innovate, and expand your technical scope

Flexible benefits including medical, dental, vision, PTO, parental leave, and retirement plans

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