Principal Front-End Network Engineer (AI Infrastructure)

Location: US

Salary: $220,000–$310,000 USD base salary per year; additional bonus, equity, and/or commission may apply.

Company

Nscale provides a GPU cloud infrastructure platform for AI start-ups and enterprise customers, focused on high-performance, cost-effective AI computing.

What you will do

• Own the technical direction and operational strategy for front-end AI infrastructure networks supporting inference, cluster management, data ingress/egress, shared storage, long-haul circuits, and carrier handoffs.
• Design, review, and evolve large-scale Ethernet leaf-spine/Clos fabrics using Arista and Nokia platforms.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex network incidents and lead deep investigations and systemic fixes.
• Define standards for hardware configuration, routing, congestion management, firmware lifecycle, automation, and safe change management across Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS, and Nokia platforms.
• Partner with SRE, Compute Platform, Storage, and Network Architecture teams on end-to-end design, DCI circuits, and storage integration.
• Mentor senior and principal network engineers while improving uptime, latency consistency, capacity efficiency, observability, and incident rates.

Requirements

• 12+ years of network engineering experience, with deep focus on hyperscale data centre, cloud, or AI infrastructure networking.
• Expert operational and architectural experience with large-scale Ethernet data centre fabrics using leaf-spine/Clos topologies.
• Strong production experience at scale with Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS/Etherlink, and/or Nokia 7220 IXR, 7250 IXR, or 7750 SR platforms.
• Deep understanding of BGP, OSPF, ECMP, and EVPN-VXLAN control planes.
• Proven experience with long-haul circuits, DCI, optical transport, dark fiber, carrier Ethernet, coherent optics, and ZR/ZR+.
• Strong background in Ethernet-based storage networking and shared storage connectivity at hyperscale.
• Ability to debug complex cross-layer issues spanning hardware, optics, routing, and application layers.
• Ability to lead complex cross-team initiatives and influence strategy without direct authority.
• Systems-level approach balancing performance, reliability, scalability, and operational cost.

Nice to have

• Hyperscale or large AI infrastructure experience with Nvidia, Arista, or Nokia platforms.
• Deep familiarity with front-end network patterns for massive AI clusters, including inference, management, and storage tiers.
• Experience designing or operating large-scale DCI, long-haul optical, or carrier networks.
• Automation and tooling experience with Python, Ansible, validation frameworks, or telemetry pipelines.
• Experience influencing platform or infrastructure strategy at significant scale.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative, supportive, innovative environment centered on ownership, accountability, openness, and transparency.
• Highly competitive base salary and equity package, with reviews every 12 months.
• Progression plan with opportunities to lead, challenge existing approaches, and expand responsibilities.
• Benefits may include medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.