Network Architect

Runware • San Francisco, CA

15h • Remote

About The Position

Runware is hiring a senior, hands-on Network Architect to own the design, build, and operation of the network supporting its AI inference platform. The role spans GPU cluster fabrics inside data centers, backbone and edge networks that deliver results to customers, and cloud and hybrid connectivity that connects partner capacity to the platform. Network architecture directly affects latency, reliability, and cost per request.

The Network Architect will set network strategy and a multi-year roadmap, design and build systems, define operational and capacity-planning practices, and lead through design authority across Infrastructure, Platform, and ML Engineering. The role begins with no direct reports but includes shaping network standards, the hiring plan, and the operating model as the infrastructure footprint grows. The position reports to Risto Haukioja, Head of AI Infrastructure. Runware expects the architect to use AI tooling as a core part of their work.

Runware is a remote-first collective with core hours for collaboration and calls, flexible scheduling outside those hours, and in-person company gatherings twice a year. Release cycles can be fast and intense, followed by expected downtime.

Requirements

• 15 or more years in network engineering and architecture, including at least 5 years as design authority for large-scale production networks at a cloud provider, hyperscaler, CDN, HPC/AI infrastructure company, or carrier.
• Hands-on experience designing, configuring, and troubleshooting networks, and building data center, backbone, and cloud networks from the ground up.
• Deep, current expertise in spine-leaf Clos fabrics, EVPN/VXLAN, BGP at scale, 400G/800G Ethernet, RoCEv2, lossless Ethernet technologies (PFC, ECN, DCQCN), and InfiniBand for GPU clusters.
• Strong backbone and edge experience, including multi-region interconnect, transit and peering, anycast, traffic engineering, and DDoS mitigation, with measurable customer-facing latency improvements.
• Cloud and hybrid networking experience across at least two hyperscalers and bare-metal or colocation environments, including VPC design, private interconnect, and VPN at scale.
• Experience designing and operating network observability, change management, incident response, and on-call practices, with judgment about what to establish first.
• Proven capacity-planning experience building forecasts that translate product growth into bandwidth, port, and interconnect plans, and running the resulting procurement cycles.
• Practical network automation experience using Python or Go, infrastructure as code for network configuration, CI-style validation, and streaming telemetry.
• Uses AI tooling to accelerate network design, configuration and automation development, telemetry analysis, and documentation, and can explain how it improves output.
• Experience leading high-performance engineering teams, including hiring, setting standards, and delivering under pressure; ability to lead through influence without direct reports.
• Strong ownership and comfort working in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment, identifying problems, creating clarity, and driving work to completion.
• Based in US Pacific time or able to maintain full working overlap with US Pacific time.

Nice To Haves

• Experience networking large GPU clusters for AI inference or training, including NVIDIA Spectrum-X, Quantum InfiniBand, NCCL tuning, or GPUDirect RDMA, and production-data-backed views on Ethernet versus InfiniBand.
• Hands-on experience with network operating systems and disaggregated hardware such as SONiC, Cumulus, Arista EOS, Junos, or NVIDIA Cumulus/Spectrum platforms.
• Experience with Ultra Ethernet, 800G and 1.6T optics, co-packaged optics, or other emerging fabric technologies.
• Experience operating peering and transit for a latency-sensitive product, including ASN management, route optimization, and IXP presence.
• Experience with eBPF, DPDK, SmartNICs/DPUs, or kernel-bypass networking on the host side.
• Prior experience at a startup or scale-up building the network function from zero.
• Public contributions such as RFCs, open-source network tooling, conference talks, or published post-mortems.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end network architecture and define its target state and multi-year roadmap across data center fabrics, backbone and edge, and cloud and hybrid connectivity.
• Design and build GPU cluster fabrics for multi-node inference and training, including Ethernet and InfiniBand systems, lossless transport, congestion control, and topology choices.
• Own backbone and edge networking, including multi-region interconnect, transit and peering, anycast and traffic steering, DDoS and edge security, and customer-facing delivery latency.
• Design VPC, VPN, and private interconnect across hyperscalers, bare-metal providers, and colocation sites to connect partner capacity to the platform.
• Define network monitoring, telemetry and observability, change management, incident runbooks, and on-call practices; establish operational practices where they do not yet exist.
• Forecast bandwidth, port, and interconnect needs from product growth and turn those forecasts into procurement and build plans.
• Automate network configuration and operations through infrastructure as code, intent-based provisioning, automated validation and rollback, and telemetry-driven remediation.
• Use AI tools for design exploration, configuration generation, log and telemetry analysis, documentation, and automation code, and establish practices for broader infrastructure teams.
• Set network standards, review designs across Infrastructure, Platform, and ML Engineering, mentor engineers, and define the network engineering hiring plan and operating model.
• Evaluate and select network hardware, optics, carriers, and interconnect partners, and negotiate on performance and cost.
• Design, configure, and troubleshoot networks hands-on.

Benefits

• Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick days, and public holidays.
• Meaningful stock options.
• Flexible hours outside core collaboration blocks.
• Paid maternity, paternity, and caregiver leave.
• Twice-yearly company retreats.
• Downtime after major release pushes, with the team expected to unplug and recharge.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed