AVP — Network Automation & Infrastructure AI

Verizon•Basking Ridge, NJ

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

Verizon is building one of the most advanced autonomous networks in the industry — self-healing, closed-loop, and increasingly agentic — across a national, multi-vendor 5G footprint. We are looking for an Associate Vice President to own the run layer of that network: the automation and AI that turn virtualized RAN and 5G Core into self-optimizing, energy-aware, cloud-native infrastructure. You will lead the engineering organization and the automation platform that already operates at a national scale, and take Verizon from human-led operations toward TM Forum Level 4 autonomy across Plan, Build, and Run. This is a builder’s role for a leader who wants to work at the frontier of cloud-native networking and applied AI — backed by the scale of Verizon.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or four or more years of equivalent work experience.
Ten or more years in large-scale network or software engineering, including five or more years leading distributed, cross-functional technical organizations.
Proven delivery of cloud-native network functions (CNF/VNF), NFV, or SDN at carrier or hyperscale.
Hands-on depth in network automation, orchestration, and closed-loop assurance.
Experience applying AI/ML to infrastructure — anomaly detection, energy or resource optimization, or autonomous operations.
Working knowledge of 5G Core, virtualized and O-RAN, edge, and multi-cloud or on-premises AI infrastructure.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
Experience moving an operator toward TM Forum autonomous networks Level 4.
Production experience with agentic AI or LLM-based operations.
Cloud-native platform leadership — Kubernetes, GitOps, SRE — and network energy-efficiency programs.
Experience with hyper scaler partnerships (Google Cloud, AWS, Azure) and on-premises AI inference at the edge.
Ability to translate deep technical strategy for board-level stakeholders and to lead cultural change across engineering.

Responsibilities

Tie automation to experience. Turn reliability and customer-experience targets into closed-loop operations that detect, diagnose, and resolve issues before customers feel them — the foundation of a self-healing network.
Own the execution of intent. Partner with the network intelligence organization: take the RAN and cross-domain intent they generate and act on it through automated, policy-governed change on the live network.
Automate the virtualized network. Own zero-touch lifecycle, upgrade, scaling, and healing for virtualized RAN (L2/L3) and 5G Core network functions across a multi-vendor, cloud-native environment.
Make the infrastructure AI-native. Lead AI/ML-driven optimization of compute and energy — dynamic power management across vCPU and radio resources, workload placement, and capacity — so the network optimizes itself.
Own and scale the platform. Run the orchestration, closed-loop assurance, and on-premises AI inference platform that already delivers hundreds of thousands of virtualized RAN upgrades and millions of automated actions each year — and take it to the next level.
Set the reference architecture. Define the agentic operating model, policy-as-code guardrails, and safe-autonomy standards for the run layer across domains and vendors.
Build and lead the team. Grow and lead a distributed engineering organization spanning cloud-native and SRE, MLOps, and network automation, with multiple director-level leaders.
Own the autonomy roadmap. Drive toward Level 4 against hard metrics: zero-touch success rate, mean-time-to-resolve, automation coverage, and energy savings.
Represent Verizon externally. Engage industry and standards bodies (TM Forum, O-RAN, 3GPP) and technology and hyper scaler partners.
Keep autonomy safe. Ensure the security, resilience, and regulatory compliance of automated action on the production network.