Principal Architect, Technology - IP Core & Metro

Ziply Fiber

3d•$155,000 - $230,000•Remote

About The Position

The Principal Architect for IP Core & Metro is Ziply Fiber's authority on the routing and switching backbone — the BGP and MPLS fabric that carries every subscriber bit from the access edge to the internet. This role will design the core and metro network architecture, own capacity engineering from OLT handoff to upstream peering, and ensure the backbone is resilient, scalable, and operationally efficient as Ziply continues to expand. The Principal Architect sits at the center of the network: everything upstream of the subscriber edge and everything downstream of the transport layer runs through you. This is a senior independent contributor role for a routing engineer who goes deep on protocol mechanics, thinks rigorously about failure domains and traffic engineering, and has the operational experience to know where elegant design meets real-world constraints.

Requirements

High school diploma or GED.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, Telecommunications, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and directly relevant IP network architecture experience.
10+ years of IP network engineering with expert-level routing and switching in a service provider, ISP, or large carrier environment.
Demonstrated senior independent contributor experience setting IP architecture standards, influencing technical direction, mentoring engineers, and driving cross-functional architecture decisions without direct people-management responsibility.
Deep BGP expertise: large-scale iBGP/eBGP design, route policy, community strategy, BGP-LS, path selection, and peering/transit architecture.
Strong MPLS proficiency: LDP, RSVP-TE, Segment Routing (SR-MPLS), and traffic engineering — including migration from legacy MPLS to SR.
Metro Ethernet and carrier aggregation experience: EVPN, QinQ, and ring-based aggregation topologies with fast-reroute and redundancy.
Track record designing and operating high-availability core networks: documented failure domain analysis, RTO/RPO targets, and convergence benchmarks.
Strong capacity planning skills: traffic matrix modeling, NetFlow/IPFIX analysis, and proactive upgrade planning.
Experience with router platforms from Nokia, Juniper, and/or Cisco in a carrier-grade production environment.
Experience creating architecture decision records, reference designs, routing standards, implementation patterns, operational runbooks, and governance processes for production IP Core and Metro platforms.

Nice To Haves

Experience with SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6) in a service provider context.
Familiarity with EVPN-VXLAN for metro and data center fabric integration.
Background in network automation for routing infrastructure: NETCONF/YANG, gNMI, OpenConfig, or Ansible with network vendor modules.
Experience at an Internet Exchange or with large-scale public peering programs.
JNCIE-SP, CCIE-SP, or equivalent certification.
Experience with routing security practices such as RPKI/ROA coordination, MANRS-aligned controls, route leak prevention, DDoS routing workflows, RTBH, or equivalent production routing-security practices.
Experience presenting IP Core, Metro, peering/transit, capacity, or resiliency strategy to VP-level or executive audiences.

Responsibilities

Own the IP core architecture: BGP topology design, iBGP/eBGP policy, MPLS/SR-MPLS label distribution, and traffic engineering across Ziply's backbone.
Define core routing policy: BGP community strategy, path selection policy, route filtering, and prefix management across all peering and transit relationships.
Architect Segment Routing (SR-MPLS) strategy: SID allocation, TE policy design, and migration path from legacy LDP/RSVP-TE where applicable.
Own upstream peering and transit strategy: peering policy, Internet Exchange presence, transit provider diversity, and route optimization.
Design metro Ethernet and aggregation ring architecture: topology, redundancy models, and handoff standards between access, aggregation, and core layers.
Define OLT/DSLAM handoff to the IP core: aggregation design, VLAN tagging and QinQ standards, and QoS pass-through policy.
Architect EVPN and L2VPN services across the metro fabric for business and wholesale customers.
Define metro ring protection and fast-reroute strategy: BFD tuning, FRR timers, and documented convergence targets.
Own core-to-metro capacity engineering: traffic matrix modeling, link utilization thresholds, and upgrade triggers to stay ahead of subscriber demand.
Define and maintain IP address management standards: core and metro IP addressing plans, BGP AS policy, and route summarization strategy.
Own NetFlow/IPFIX telemetry architecture for traffic analysis: collector design, sampling policy, and integration with capacity planning and security tools.
Collaborate with the Transport architect to ensure IP and optical layer integration is optimized — including traffic engineering across the DWDM layer.
Define and manage Ziply's peering strategy: public and private peering relationships, IX presence (Seattle IX, SIX, or equivalent), and route optimization.
Own transit provider architecture: provider diversity, failover policy, and commercial alignment with capacity planning.
Collaborate with the Subscriber Edge architect to ensure seamless BNG-to-core integration and consistent QoS policy end to end.
Performs other duties as required to support the business and evolving organization.