Network Engineer - AI Infrastructure, RDMA & Storage

VAST Data • West Coast,

1d

About The Position

VAST Data is seeking a Network Engineer for its Field Engineering organization to design and validate network architectures supporting AI infrastructure, GPU fabrics, and high-performance storage. The role defines reference architectures, validated switch configurations, and RDMA fabric designs used in customer deployments. It focuses on design, research, lab validation, and complex technical problem-solving rather than support-queue work.

The engineer will build and operate lab environments to qualify switches, NICs, and network operating systems; conduct interoperability and performance testing; and reproduce customer issues. They will investigate network behavior at high speeds and under real workloads, work with networking vendors and cross-functional teams, and turn findings into documented practices, automation, and input for VAST product development.

Requirements

• Strong data center networking fundamentals at CCNP level or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Solid command of BGP and L3 routing, including eBGP/iBGP, ECMP, route policy, multipath, and BGP-based fabrics.
• Hands-on experience designing and troubleshooting L2 and L3 data center networks.
• Ability to troubleshoot routing, ARP/ND, MTU, congestion, packet loss, and latency across network layers.
• Working knowledge of Linux networking, including interfaces, VLANs, routing tables, namespaces, and MTU.
• Familiarity with tcpdump, Wireshark, iperf, and standard diagnostic tools.
• Ability and inclination to build a lab and reproduce problems rather than rely on theory alone.
• Clear technical writing skills.

Responsibilities

• Define reference network architectures for VAST deployments, including L2 and L3 fabrics, BGP and EVPN/VXLAN designs, RoCEv2, and QoS policy.
• Build and operate validation environments for switch qualification, interoperability testing, performance characterization, and reproducing customer issues.
• Evaluate switches, network operating systems, and NICs from NVIDIA, Arista, Cisco, Juniper, and other vendors.
• Work with vendor engineering teams to address gaps and certify compatible solutions.
• Troubleshoot complex issues across the path between GPUs, the network fabric, and storage, including congestion, packet loss, MTU, latency, PFC, and ECN behavior under load.
• Document findings as best practices and designs, develop automation, and provide direct product feedback to R&D.
• Collaborate with R&D, QA, Support, Product, customer engineering teams, and networking vendors.

What This Job Offers

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