Senior Principal Engineer, Enterprise Networking Architecture, Automation and AI

Equinix•Toronto, ON

56d•$177,000 - $319,000

About The Position

Equinix is seeking a Sr Principal Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority for the architecture, automation, telemetry, and continued evolution of our global corporate enterprise network, known as the GEN network. This individual-contributor role combines deep network architecture and protocol expertise, hands-on Python automation, and applied artificial intelligence. The successful candidate will define the future-state architecture of the GEN network, establish global standards and reference designs, and lead a three-to-five-year modernization strategy. The Sr Principal Engineer will bridge network engineering and software development, helping Equinix move from manual and tool-specific practices toward automated, testable, observable, policy-driven, and AI-augmented network operations. This role requires a mature technical leader who can evaluate complex network designs and automation capabilities, influence global engineering teams without formal authority, and communicate architecture decisions to executives through business value, risk, cost, security, resiliency, and operational impact.

Requirements

15+ years of progressively responsible experience in corporate enterprise networking, network engineering, network architecture, network automation, infrastructure architecture, or a closely related technical discipline.
A significant record of operating as a Principal Engineer, Senior Principal Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, Chief Network Architect, Fellow, or equivalent senior technical authority responsible for enterprise architecture, strategy, standards, and complex cross-functional decisions.
Demonstrated ownership of global or multiregion corporate enterprise-network architecture.
Experience architecting or governing approximately 10,000 or more network nodes, or an environment with comparable global scale, complexity, and criticality.
Deep protocol-level expertise in BGP and OSPF, with strong working knowledge of IS-IS, routing policy, convergence, resiliency, and failure analysis.
Architecture experience across enterprise WAN, campus, data center, cloud connectivity, wireless, secure access, network security, and carrier services.
Strong knowledge of EVPN, VXLAN, leaf-spine fabrics, segmentation, multihoming, gateway design, and Layer 2 and Layer 3 architecture.
Strong Python experience applied directly to network engineering, automation, telemetry, or operations, including the ability to personally review and troubleshoot meaningful Python-based capabilities.
Experience with network automation, infrastructure as code, source-of-truth architecture, intended-versus-actual-state reconciliation, testing, configuration drift, remediation, and rollback.
Demonstrated applied-AI experience in networking, infrastructure, security, engineering, or operations, including a real implementation or pilot with measurable value.
Strong experience with network telemetry, observability, topology, configuration-state, or operational-data integration.
Proven success creating global standards and technical roadmaps, influencing executives without formal authority, and mentoring senior technical professionals.
Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical decisions clearly and connect them to business outcomes.

Nice To Haves

Experience within financial services, FinTech, a hyperscaler, Fortune 50 company, telecommunications provider, network or security vendor, digital-infrastructure company, or similarly complex global environment.
Machine-learning experience applied to network operations, security, capacity planning, optimization, or remediation.
Experience with network digital twins, topology-intelligence platforms, large language models, or agentic infrastructure workflows.
Experience with NetBox, Nautobot, OpenConfig, YANG, gNMI, MPLS, Segment Routing, SONiC, whitebox networking, or high-speed networking.
Demonstrated technical influence through enterprise standards, architecture councils, vendor advisory groups, technical communities, publications, patents, open source, standards participation, or speaking.
Advanced technical certification, advanced degree, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.

Responsibilities

Define the target-state architecture and multiyear strategy for the global GEN corporate enterprise network.
Provide architectural direction across global LAN, WAN, campus, branch, wireless, corporate data center, cloud connectivity, secure access, network security, carrier services, and resiliency.
Establish global standards, reference architectures, design patterns, technical guardrails, and architecture-governance practices.
Identify technical debt, lifecycle risks, capacity needs, architectural constraints, and modernization opportunities.
Own most corporate network architecture decisions while aligning with security, cloud, infrastructure, enterprise architecture, risk, and other Equinix standards.
Evaluate architecture alternatives and emerging technologies based on scalability, availability, security, operational readiness, cost, and measurable business value.
Provide deep technical leadership in routing, switching, traffic engineering, control-plane behavior, network resiliency, and complex failure scenarios.
Apply expert knowledge of BGP and OSPF, with strong working knowledge of IS-IS and large-scale routing concepts.
Guide architecture involving EVPN, VXLAN, leaf-spine fabrics, Layer 2 and Layer 3 boundaries, multihoming, segmentation, SD-WAN, cloud interconnection, and high-speed networking.
Personally write, review, troubleshoot, or materially guide Python used for network automation, telemetry, and data processing.
Translate network requirements into reliable software-enabled workflows in partnership with network engineers and software developers.
Establish network-as-code practices using Python, Ansible, Terraform, Git, APIs, structured data, and GitOps.
Define authoritative sources of truth for intended network state, inventory, topology, configuration, policy, and service data.
Establish production controls for testing, configuration validation, drift detection, compliance, deployment, rollback, and post-change verification.
Evaluate multi-vendor and open-networking technologies based on standards, interoperability, operational maturity, supportability, and strategic fit.
Define enterprise strategy for network telemetry, observability, topology intelligence, monitoring, and operational analytics.
Integrate routing, topology, configuration, inventory, performance, flow, event, log, and security data to improve network visibility and decision-making.
Advance service-aware and intent-aware observability, dependency mapping, digital twins, and proactive network operations.
Lead practical application of AI to network architecture, engineering, and operations.
Develop AI-enabled capabilities such as anomaly detection, event correlation, root-cause analysis, predictive capacity planning, configuration analysis, intelligent troubleshooting, incident triage, and remediation recommendations.
Ensure AI capabilities use reliable data and appropriate security, privacy, validation, explainability, human oversight, and operational controls.
Clearly distinguish genuine AI-enabled capabilities from conventional scripting, rules-based automation, and vendor marketing.
Connect AI initiatives to measurable improvements in availability, security, operating efficiency, risk reduction, and engineering productivity.
Present architecture recommendations, options, tradeoffs, risks, investment needs, and expected outcomes to technical and executive audiences.
Lead architecture reviews, technical councils, engineering communities, and cross-functional decision forums.
Build alignment across network engineering, software development, cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, operations, and enterprise architecture teams.
Mentor Principal, Senior Principal, Senior Staff, and other senior engineers and architects.
Influence vendor roadmaps and represent Equinix credibly in technical, architecture, vendor, and industry forums.