Lead Network Engineer - Backbone Engineering

Salesforce Salesforce · Enterprise · McLean, VA +2

Salesforce is seeking a Lead Network Engineer to join their Infrastructure Strategy and Data Center Operations team. This role will focus on network capacity and connectivity strategy for the Salesforce core network, including peering relationships, capacity planning, and the design and maintenance of backbone routing architecture. Responsibilities include network automation using Python and Ansible, BGP peering management, and router migrations. The role requires strong experience in production network environments, Cisco/Juniper routers, routing protocols, and network automation.

What you'd actually do

  1. Act as a liaison with the vendor sourcing team
  2. Helping to develop and maintain metrics on our capacity vendors
  3. Project managing new capacity installs with various teams including sourcing and field engineering
  4. Updating the network and associated datastores for capacity additions and decommissions
  5. Work with various teams to provide feedback, document, and implement various new network designs

Skills

Required

  • 7 years in production network environments
  • Project management skills
  • Experience working with telecommunications vendors
  • Experience with Cisco and Juniper carrier-class routers
  • Experience with Cisco Nexus-based switches
  • Knowledge of routing protocols such as BGP and IS-IS
  • Fundamental understanding of WDM technologies
  • Strong Python coding skills
  • Good understanding of Unix/Linux-based operating systems
  • Experience developing and maintaining network automation tools
  • Experience with Git, or other version control systems
  • Ability to self-manage multiple projects
  • A good understanding of the current state of AI, machine learning, LLMs, MCP, etc.
  • Related technical degree

Nice to have

  • Experience managing co-located infrastructure
  • Experience with DWDM platforms
  • Experience with MACSec encryption
  • Extensive network troubleshooting and network monitoring skills
  • Hands-on experience with production hardware life-cycle management
  • Experience with Puppet, Terraform, Containers, and/or K8S
  • Familiarity with CI/CD principles
  • Previous experience with lift and shift backbone router migrations
  • Experience administering global, web-scale IP Address allocations
  • Solid understanding of the transit, public peering and SFI spaces
  • Experience writing prompts against public AI chatbots
  • Experience with AI-assisted coding
  • Prior experience with the Salesforce core application

What the JD emphasized

  • Minimum 7 years in production network environments
  • Strong Python coding skills
  • Experience developing and maintaining network automation tools