Sr. Principal Autonomous Networks & Agentic AI Architect – 5G Mobile Core

AT&T • Bothell, WA

6d • $208,600 - $313,000 • Onsite

About The Position

AT&T is hiring a senior technical leader to advance autonomous network operations across its 5G Mobile Core. The Sr. Principal Member of Technical Staff will set technical direction and lead the architecture, engineering, and delivery of capabilities that advance Mobile Core use cases across TM Forum Autonomous Network maturity Levels 1–5. The role spans network architecture, software engineering, AI/ML, telecom standards, network operations, and large-scale execution.

The architect will define intent-driven and agentic network architectures, design closed-loop self-healing systems, and develop telemetry, topology, event, and network-data pipelines. The position includes applying analytics and digital twins, operationalizing LLM and AI agents, building AI-assisted testing frameworks, and establishing responsible automation and security controls. The role also involves troubleshooting, measuring autonomy outcomes, influencing supplier roadmaps, representing AT&T in industry standards organizations, and mentoring engineers.

This is a full-time, onsite position performed at the designated work location five days per week. No relocation is offered. The listed location is Bothell, Washington.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in network automation, system architecture, AI/ML engineering, or telecom software engineering.
• Advanced knowledge of 5G Standalone Mobile Core technologies, protocols, and procedures, including HTTP/2 and mTLS.
• Hands-on development experience with Python and/or Go.
• Experience implementing and scaling machine-learning models and AI-enabled applications in production environments.
• Practical experience with LLMs, agentic AI architectures, AI agents, tool/function integration, guardrails, and model evaluation.
• Experience building intent-driven and closed-loop automation systems.
• Demonstrated experience using GitOps for lifecycle management and configuration management.
• Experience with engineering workflows including Git, CI/CD, automated testing, AI-assisted development, debugging, and code management.
• Experience delivering telecom capabilities on cloud-native platforms.
• Understanding of network observability, telemetry, event processing, network topology, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Experience with AI and automation security controls, identity, least-privilege access, authentication, secrets management, and automated policy enforcement.
• Experience participating in or contributing to TM Forum, 3GPP, ETSI, or comparable telecommunications standards initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technically complex initiatives across distributed engineering and operational organizations.
• Deep expertise in telecommunications network architecture and automation, ideally in large-scale Mobile Core environments.
• Strong understanding of 5G Standalone Core architecture, network functions, protocols, lifecycle management, configuration management, and operational workflows.
• Demonstrated expertise in TM Forum Autonomous Networks and intent-driven network management.
• Hands-on experience designing agentic AI and closed-loop automation systems, including LLM-based agents, tool integration, guardrails, evaluation, and governance.
• Strong background in AIOps, ML-enabled automation, observability, network analytics, and production AI/ML architectures.
• Ability to bridge traditional network engineering with cloud-native software engineering, AI/ML, GitOps, APIs, telemetry, and automation.
• Experience architecting highly available, scalable distributed systems with a focus on reliability, performance, security, and operational efficiency.
• Proven ability to establish technical direction and drive complex, cross-functional engineering initiatives from architecture through production.
• Strong communication skills and ability to influence engineering, operations, suppliers, standards organizations, and senior leadership.
• Hands-on, execution-oriented approach to turning emerging AI and autonomous-network concepts into production-grade solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and engineering of autonomous network capabilities for AT&T's Mobile Core, advancing use cases across TM Forum Autonomous Network Levels 1–5.
• Define intent-driven architectures that translate business and operational intent into policies, decisions, and automated network actions.
• Establish reference architecture for agentic network operations and interactions with network functions, OSS platforms, observability systems, APIs, and automation tools.
• Design and deploy closed-loop, self-healing systems that detect network conditions, determine and execute corrective actions, and validate outcomes.
• Architect real-time telemetry, topology, event, and network-data pipelines to provide autonomous systems with accurate network state.
• Apply network analytics and digital twins to predict issues, simulate network behavior, and validate automated actions before production deployment.
• Develop and operationalize LLM and AI agents, including model selection, tuning, evaluation, tool integration, orchestration, and lifecycle management.
• Build AI-assisted testing and automation frameworks to accelerate certification, improve defect detection, and increase deployment confidence.
• Establish responsible automation controls, including policy-as-code, human-in-the-loop approvals, blast-radius limits, automated rollback, explainability, and auditability.
• Design agentic-environment security controls, including agent identity, least-privilege access, token-based authentication, secrets management, credential lifecycle management, and protections against prompt injection and tool misuse.
• Perform technical troubleshooting and root cause analysis using logs, network KPIs, telemetry, and packet-level diagnostics.
• Define and measure autonomy outcomes, including touchless operations, MTTD/MTTR, false-positive rates, and automated-change success.
• Influence supplier roadmaps so network functions provide automation-ready APIs, telemetry, and control points.
• Represent AT&T in TM Forum, 3GPP SA5, and ETSI ZSM, translating emerging standards into implementable network architectures.
• Mentor engineers and establish technical direction across teams adopting AI-driven and autonomous network operations.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) plan
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Paid parental leave
• Paid caregiver leave
• Additional sick leave may be available beyond what state and local law require; it is unprotected
• Adoption reimbursement
• Short- and long-term disability benefits
• Life and accidental death insurance
• Supplemental critical illness, accident, hospital indemnity, and group legal programs
• Employee Assistance Programs
• Employee wellness programs
• Employee discounts of up to 50% on eligible AT&T mobility plans and accessories, internet and fiber where available, and phone service
• Long-term grants and deferred compensation
• Paid time off and holidays, including at least 28 vacation days per year and 9 company-designated holidays, based on hire date

What This Job Offers

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