Senior Network Architect

Rackspace Technology

2d•$165,830 - $243,142•Remote

About The Position

Responsible for the strategic architecture, design, and technical direction of Rackspace's global data center and wide area network (WAN) infrastructure, with a primary focus on healthcare customer environments. Serves as the senior technical authority for data center fabric and WAN transport, including the high-bandwidth, low-latency network underlay required to support high-performance compute (HPC) and other data-intensive workloads. Translates healthcare business, clinical, and regulatory requirements into scalable, resilient, and secure network architectures. Acts as a liaison with vendors and third-party providers and partners closely with engineering, security, and customer teams to guide the network's strategic direction across highly available, compliance-driven healthcare infrastructure. This is a network architecture role focused on the connectivity fabric that delivers bandwidth and throughput to compute and storage platforms, not on designing or administering the HPC compute clusters themselves.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive network engineering/architecture experience required, including hands-on experience architecting data center fabric and WAN transport, with demonstrated experience building high-bandwidth, low-latency network fabric to support HPC or other data-intensive compute workloads
Demonstrated experience architecting network infrastructure for health systems, payers, or healthcare SaaS platforms required, including direct (not merely exposure-level) experience in HIPAA/HITRUST-regulated environments, clinical system connectivity, and supporting customer compliance audits
Expert-level knowledge of data center fabric architecture, including spine-leaf design, VXLAN/EVPN overlays, and multi-site fabric interconnect
Expert-level knowledge of WAN architecture, including MPLS, SD-WAN, and optical/DWDM transport design
Advanced knowledge of BGP and OSPF design, troubleshooting, and traffic engineering across multi-site environments
Advanced knowledge of Cisco ACI architecture and data center fabric design, and Cisco SD-Access architecture and campus fabric design
Strong knowledge of network security architecture, including Palo Alto Networks firewall policy design and segmentation strategies, and its integration with data center and WAN design
Strong knowledge of network access control (NAC) concepts and enforcement using Forescout or similar tools
Working knowledge of equipment and platforms from multiple vendors, such as Cisco, Aruba, and Palo Alto Networks
Working knowledge of healthcare IT infrastructure and compliance requirements, including HIPAA, HITRUST, and network architecture supporting EHR/EMR, PACS, and clinical/biomedical device connectivity
Working knowledge of Business Associate Agreement (BAA) implications when selecting or onboarding network transport, colocation, or cloud on-ramp vendors that touch PHI-adjacent traffic
Data Center & WAN Architecture and Design
High-Bandwidth Network Fabric Design for HPC/GPU Workloads
Advanced Routing & Switching (BGP, OSPF, EVPN/VXLAN)
Advanced Switching (VLANs, STP, port-channels, vPC)
Network Automation & Infrastructure-as-Code (Python, Ansible)
Network Security & NAC (Palo Alto Networks, Forescout)
Capacity Planning & Traffic Engineering
Healthcare Network Compliance (HIPAA/HITRUST) & PHI Data-Flow Design
Complex Troubleshooting & Root Cause Analysis
Technical Documentation & Network Diagramming (LLD/HLD)
Vendor & Stakeholder Management
Coaching & Mentoring
Client/Customer Service
CCNP or higher required (Enterprise, Data Center, or Service Provider track); CCIE strongly preferred

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with HL7/FHIR interface engines and medical device network integration (biomedical/IoMT)
Prior experience architecting infrastructure for hospital systems, health systems, or healthcare SaaS providers
Experience with cloud on-ramp and hybrid connectivity (AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, or equivalent)
Exposure to network detection and response / traffic analysis tools (e.g., ExtraHop)
Data center or cloud networking certifications (e.g., Cisco Data Center, Arista ACE, Juniper JNCIE) a plus
Healthcare compliance certifications (e.g., HITRUST CCSFP, HCISPP) a plus

Responsibilities

Owns end-to-end architecture of the global data center fabric, including spine-leaf and Clos-based designs, EVPN/VXLAN overlay, and high-density, low-latency topologies that support both enterprise and HPC workloads
Architects and evolves the enterprise WAN, including MPLS, SD-WAN, dark fiber, and DWDM transport, to deliver resilient, low-latency connectivity between data centers, campuses, and cloud on-ramps
Architects high-bandwidth, non-blocking network fabrics that deliver the throughput, low latency, and lossless transport required by HPC, GPU cluster, and distributed storage workloads (network connectivity only; does not design or manage the compute/HPC cluster itself)
Defines routing and control-plane architecture across BGP, OSPF, and EVPN, including multi-site route policy, redistribution, and traffic engineering
Architects and maintains Cisco ACI fabric environments, including tenant design, endpoint groups, contracts, and fabric integration
Architects and maintains Cisco SD-Access (SDA) fabric environments, including underlay/overlay design, fabric edge/border/control-plane nodes, and DNA Center-based policy and segmentation
Designs, configures, and troubleshoots Palo Alto Networks firewalls, including security policy design, NAT, VPN, and threat prevention
Designs and manages network access control (NAC) policies and device compliance using Forescout or similar tools
Leads capacity planning and lifecycle strategy for data center and WAN infrastructure, balancing performance, redundancy, and cost
Serves as the highest-level escalation point for complex, service-impacting data center and WAN incidents, including routing protocol, fabric/switching connectivity, and firewall policy conflicts, driving root-cause analysis and long-term remediation
Owns and is held accountable to defined delivery metrics for data center and WAN infrastructure including network availability %, MTTR for service-impacting incidents, and RTO/RPO targets for clinical-failover scenarios as established with healthcare customers and internal stakeholders.
Coordinates incident communication and downtime procedures with hospital IT, clinical/nursing informatics, and biomedical engineering teams during service-impacting events affecting patient-care systems
Partners with network security architecture teams to ensure segmentation, firewall policy, and access-control designs align with data center and WAN topology
Develops automation and infrastructure-as-code practices (Python, Ansible, or equivalent) to standardize provisioning, validation, and change management across the fabric
Plans and executes network changes around clinical change-freeze windows and blackout periods (e.g., surgical schedules, EHR go-lives), coordinating timing with hospital operations to avoid disruption to patient-care systems
Researches, evaluates, and recommends emerging data center, WAN, and HPC networking technologies and vendors based on performance, scalability, and business value
Leads implementation planning and peer design reviews for major infrastructure initiatives, including new data center builds, fabric refreshes, and WAN transport migrations
Creates and maintains architecture documentation, low-level and high-level design (LLD/HLD) artifacts, network diagrams, and standard operating procedures
Mentors and provides technical guidance to network engineers and architects across the organization
Contributes to disaster recovery and business continuity planning for data center and WAN environments, with attention to the uptime and failover requirements of clinical and patient-care systems
Designs network architecture to support healthcare-specific workloads, including EHR/EMR platforms (e.g., Epic, Cerner), PACS/medical imaging, HL7/FHIR integration engines, and connected medical devices, as well as life-safety network domains such as nurse call systems, physician paging, and emergency communication networks
Ensures data center and WAN designs align with HIPAA, HITRUST, and other healthcare regulatory and compliance requirements, partnering with security and compliance teams on network segmentation and PHI data-flow controls
Maintains audit-ready evidence of network segmentation and PHI data-flow controls to support customer HIPAA/HITRUST assessments and regulatory audits
Architects provable tenant-to-tenant traffic isolation across shared data center and WAN infrastructure, ensuring one health system customer's PHI-bearing traffic cannot be accessed by or commingled with another's
Supports high-availability architecture for mission-critical healthcare environments, including hospital and clinical site connectivity, disaster recovery, and zero/near-zero downtime failover
Participates in a 24x7 on-call support rotation supporting clinical operations, with defined incident response and escalation SLAs