Staff Backbone Network Engineer

Staff Backbone Network Engineer

Location: If you're located near one of our offices in Palo Alto, California or Toronto, Canada, you might be asked to work hybrid.

Responsibilities & opportunities in this role:

• Backbone Architecture & Design
• Global Network Collaboration: Partner with regional network teams to harmonize routing, peering, and policy across all sites. Serve as the primary liaison for external service providers (ISP, dark‑fiber carriers) and coordinate joint troubleshooting.
• Transport Optimization & Performance: Monitor link utilization, packet loss, jitter, and latency using telemetry (NetFlow, sFlow, OpenTelemetry).
• Network Automation & Configuration Management: Build and maintain GitOps‑driven pipelines (Buildkite, Terraform, Python, Kubernetes) for backbone configuration and lifecycle management.

Ideal candidates have/are:

• Backbone Expertise – 7+ years designing, deploying, and operating inter‑DC transport networks (ISIS, MPLS, SR, TE, L3VPN, Anycast, dark fiber, wave and optical platforms).
• Routing Proficiency – Deep knowledge of BGP, ISIS, SR, TE; experience with route reflectors, full internet routing tables on global networks, IXs and BGP communities.
• Automation & Scripting – Strong background having automated several networks previously, especially with use of Terraform/CDKTF, Python, and vendor APIs for configuration management and automation.
• Cloud native application development and delivery - Testing and packaging automation as cloud native RESTful Python applications (FastAPI)
• Monitoring & Telemetry – Familiarity with NetFlow, sFlow, Prometheus ecosystem, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry for end‑to‑end visibility.
• Security Knowledge – Understanding of IPsec, MACsec, ACLs, and DDoS mitigation in a global network context.
• Soft Skills – Excellent analytical, communication, and collaboration abilities; comfortable leading cross‑geo teams and mentoring others.

Why Join Us

• Purposeful Hiring: You’re not here by accident, and neither is anyone else. Every teammate is handpicked with intention because who we build with matters.
• Builders Wanted: You’re not just riding the rocket ship, you’re building it. Your work directly shapes the trajectory of our company.
• Mission-Driven Work: We’re here to make a real impact. Our mission fuels everything we do.
• Tackling Hard Problems: If easy isn’t your thing, you’re in the right place. We solve some of the most complex and exciting challenges in our space.
• Excellence Is The Standard: High performance isn’t just encouraged, it’s the baseline. And it’s contagious.

If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!

Compensation:

USA

Compensation: At Groq, a competitive base salary is part of our comprehensive compensation package, which includes equity and benefits. For this role, the base salary range is $203,200 to $239,100, determined by your location, skills, qualifications, experience and internal benchmarks. This range is specific to roles in the United States, compensation for candidates outside the USA will be dependent on the local market.

#LI-Remote, #LI-Hybrid, #LI-Onsite