Sr Network Engineer

Rakuten•San Mateo, CA

1d•$99,306 - $171,612•Onsite

About The Position

Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader in services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, the Rakuten International business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and managing the organization's network infrastructure to ensure reliable and secure connectivity. You will configure and maintain routers, switches, firewalls, and other network devices, optimizing performance and troubleshooting issues as they arise. Your role includes monitoring network traffic, performing upgrades, and collaborating with IT teams to align network architecture with business needs.

Requirements

Expert BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS, VRF, QoS; SD-WAN (Cisco Viptela/Meraki, FortiManager, Silver Peak); Network OS (Cisco IOS-XE/XR, NX-OS; Juniper Junos; Arista EOS); Data center switching (Cisco Nexus, Arista, Juniper QFX).
NGFW (Palo Alto, Cisco FTD, FortiGate); IDS/IPS; VPN (IPsec, SSL); NAC (Cisco ISE, Aruba ClearPass); DDoS mitigation; WAF; segmentation & Zero Trust principles; Zscaler (ZIA, ZPA for SWG/cloud firewall/ZTNA) and ZDX for digital experience monitoring/troubleshooting.
AWS (VPC, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway, Route 53, Security Groups, NACLs); Azure (VNet, ExpressRoute, Virtual WAN, NSGs, Azure Firewall); GCP (VPC, Interconnect, Cloud VPN, Cloud Routers).
Python; Ansible/Puppet/Chef; REST APIs; NetConf/YANG; network automation platforms (Cisco NSO, Itential).
F5 BIG-IP (LTM, GTM, ASM); Citrix ADC (NetScaler); NGINX; HAProxy.
Enterprise Wi Fi (Cisco Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus); wireless security (WPA2/3, 802.1X).
SNMP; NetFlow/IPFIX; sFlow; NPM tools (SolarWinds, ExtraHop, AppDynamics); log management/SIEM (Splunk, ELK Stack, Sumo Logic).
Bachelor's Degree Required
Linux (LPIC or RHC) certification Upon Hire Required

Nice To Haves

QoS for VoIP/video; SIP, H.323; Cisco Unified Communications; Microsoft Teams/Zoom network integration.
Cisco CCNP Enterprise/Data Center/Security; (CCIE preferred); Juniper JNCIP/JNCIE; Palo Alto PCNSE; Fortinet NSE 4+; AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty; Azure Network Engineer Associate.
Master's Degree Preferred
Linux (LPIC or RHC) certification Upon Hire Preferred
Cloud computing (AWS, Azure, or GCP) certification Upon Hire Preferred

Responsibilities

Lead the design and implementation of highly available, secure, scalable network solutions across LAN, WAN, Data Center, and Cloud environments; ensure solutions integrate with existing systems and support future growth.
Assess network infrastructure and operational processes to identify optimization opportunities and risk reduction; regularly review performance and implement improvements to maintain high availability and security.
Act as the SME for complex network incidents—perform root cause analysis , implement permanent fixes, and proactively address performance bottlenecks and capacity constraints.
Design, implement, and manage security solutions including NGFW, IDS/IPS, VPN (IPsec/SSL), NAC, and DDoS mitigation ; lead Zero Trust / ZTNA implementations and optimization, including Zscaler ZIA/ZPA , ensuring alignment with security policies and industry standards.
Architect, deploy, and manage public-cloud networking (e.g., AWS VPC, Azure VNet, GCP ) including Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, Transit Gateways , and other cloud-native networking capabilities.
Provide expert hands-on leadership for advanced routing (BGP/OSPF/EIGRP), MPLS, SD-WAN (e.g., Cisco Viptela/Meraki, FortiManager) and high-performance switching platforms (e.g., Cisco Nexus, Arista ).
Drive network automation initiatives using Python/Ansible and network automation platforms to streamline configuration, deployment, and operational tasks.
Design and manage ADCs/load balancers (e.g., F5 BIG-IP, Citrix ADC, NGINX ) to ensure application high availability and performance.
Implement and manage monitoring/logging platforms (e.g., SolarWinds, PRTG, Splunk, ELK Stack ) to proactively detect issues, analyze performance, and produce actionable insights.
Provide technical leadership on large-scale network initiatives—coordinate across teams, manage timelines/resources, and ensure deliverables meet operational and compliance standards.
Develop and maintain network architecture documentation, standards, best practices , configurations, procedures, and diagrams; continuously refine processes to improve service delivery and consistency across projects.
Mentor junior engineers, share troubleshooting/design best practices, and lead technical initiatives from conception through completion.
Partner with vendors for technology evaluation, procurement, and support/escalations.