Staff Front-End Network Engineer

Nscale • Houston, NY

22d

About The Position

Nscale is seeking a Staff Front-End Network Engineer to provide technical leadership for the front-end networking domain of its AI infrastructure. The role focuses on reliability, scalability, and operational excellence for high-performance Ethernet networks supporting inference traffic, cluster management, data ingress and egress, shared storage connectivity, long-haul circuits, and carrier handoffs. The engineer will influence architecture and cross-team outcomes while addressing complex networking challenges.

Requirements

• 10–12+ years of network engineering experience, with a strong focus on hyperscale data center, cloud, or AI infrastructure networking.
• Deep hands-on experience with large-scale Ethernet data center fabrics using leaf-spine / Clos topologies.
• Production expertise with Nvidia (Cumulus), Arista EOS, and/or Nokia platforms at scale.
• Solid understanding of data center routing and control planes, including BGP, OSPF, ECMP, and EVPN-VXLAN.
• Experience with long-haul circuits, DCI, and optical transport, including dark fiber, carrier Ethernet, coherent optics, and ZR/ZR+.
• Strong understanding of storage networking over Ethernet in large-scale environments.
• Ability to debug and resolve complex cross-layer issues involving hardware, optics, routing, and application layers.
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives across teams and influence outcomes without formal authority.
• Strong systems thinking and ability to balance performance, reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Nice To Haves

• Experience operating Arista, Nokia, or Nvidia networking platforms at hyperscale.
• Familiarity with AI infrastructure network design patterns, including inference, management, and storage tiers.
• Exposure to DCI / long-haul optical or carrier network design and operations.
• Strong automation experience with Python, Ansible, telemetry pipelines, or validation frameworks.
• Experience contributing to infrastructure strategy or large-scale platform improvements.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical direction and operational improvements for front-end AI infrastructure networks.
• Design, review, and evolve large-scale Ethernet leaf-spine / Clos fabric architectures using Arista and Nokia platforms.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for complex front-end network incidents and lead root-cause analysis and remediation.
• Drive cross-team initiatives that improve fabric reliability, performance consistency, observability, and operational maturity.
• Define and evolve engineering standards for hardware configuration, routing, congestion management, firmware lifecycle, automation, and change safety across Nvidia Cumulus, Arista EOS, and Nokia platforms.
• Partner with SRE, Compute Platform, Storage, and Network Architecture teams on end-to-end system design, including DCI and storage networking integration.
• Mentor senior engineers and contribute to technical excellence across the organization.
• Deliver measurable improvements in uptime, latency consistency, capacity efficiency, and incident reduction for front-end services.

Benefits

• Highly competitive package (base + equity) with annual reviews.
• Opportunity to join a fast-growing AI infrastructure company and work on cutting-edge systems.
• A progression path tailored to employee growth, with opportunities to lead, innovate, and expand technical scope.
• Flexible benefits including medical, dental, vision, PTO, parental leave, and retirement plans.

What This Job Offers

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