Staff Software Engineer - Datacenter Networking & SDN

Alibaba Cloud; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 133,200 - 219,600; Full time

Job summary

Alibaba Cloud is seeking experienced networking engineers to design and implement next‑generation datacenter and wide‑area networking platforms. You will tackle Ethernet switching, IP networking, and high‑performance protocols in a fast‑paced environment, contributing to NIC/DPU/IPU accelerated solutions and SDN deployments.

The team emphasizes collaboration, strong communication, and the ability to independently design robust features for Alibaba's scale.

Qualifications

• Experience in design and development of Ethernet switching or routing software or distributed systems.
• Understanding of IP networking and large-scale datacenter/backbone architecture.
• Familiar with NIC/switch ASIC hardware and related software development.
• Knowledge of C/C++ and Python; experience with Linux kernel networking or device drivers.
• Experience in high‑performance networking protocols such as RDMA.
• Ability to design a solution and implement features independently.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement networking technologies for Alibaba's datacenter and WAN.
• Develop white-box switches, NIC/DPU/IPU acceleration, high‑performance packet processing, and SDN solutions.
• Collaborate with teams and communicate clearly to influence network architecture.

Skills

Ethernet switching

IP networking

C/C++

Python

Linux kernel networking

RDMA

SONiC

NIC/ASIC hardware

Job description

Alibaba Cloud is seeking experienced networking engineers to design and implement next‑generation datacenter and wide‑area networking platforms. You will tackle Ethernet switching, IP networking, and high‑performance protocols in a fast‑paced environment, contributing to NIC/DPU/IPU accelerated solutions and SDN deployments.

The team emphasizes collaboration, strong communication, and the ability to independently design robust features for Alibaba's scale.