Data Center Network Operations Engineer

Description

The company runs one of the largest networks on the Internet, serving everyone from individual bloggers to Fortune 500 companies. Its global network routes web traffic for customer sites, improving their performance and blocking spam and attacks, all without customers adding hardware, installing software or changing their code.

The team is looking for builders who notice long-standing problems in how the Internet works and who use the latest AI tools to fix them. The culture is built on iterating quickly, using AI to ship faster, and sharing every improvement, however small, across the team. Curiosity matters more than bureaucracy, and AI is treated as a working partner.

Hiring locations: Lisbon, Portugal and London, United Kingdom.

You will maintain the company's global network in a highly visible role. You will work with the SRE, Network Engineering and Network Deployment Engineering teams, plus hardware vendors, data center and network providers, and ISPs, to keep the global infrastructure running and improve it. You will also build and roll out consistent processes and measurements for managing that infrastructure. The role calls for deep knowledge of data center infrastructure and physical networking, plus basic data analysis and project management skills.

Success here requires strong technical and communication skills, and the ability to handle constraints such as tight schedules, different time zones and different cultures. You will help build a faster, safer Internet used by millions of people and billions of visits each month.

Responsibilities

• Work with internal teams (Infrastructure, Network Engineering and SRE) and with hardware manufacturers, data center and network providers, logistics partners and other service providers to support operations in over 330 cities and 125 countries. Write documentation and direct remote contractors on data center tasks.
• Keep data center environments operationally available.
• Use AI tools to automate repetitive operational work, speed up documentation, and shorten troubleshooting and root-cause analysis.
• Write and maintain documentation, plans, SOPs and MOPs.
• Support and configure network infrastructure as needed.
• Give internal teams feedback to improve internal tools and external vendor relationships.
• Take part in a shared on-call rotation that keeps the global network available 24x7.
• Other responsibilities may include: pushing for new technology and automation that is effective, efficient and scalable for deploying and maintaining the global infrastructure; helping define, document and roll out consistent processes across all regions; limited travel.

Requirements

• Experience with Juniper, Cisco and DWDM network equipment.
• At least 4 years of Linux systems administration experience.
• Experience managing and instructing remote contractors.
• Familiarity with standing up infrastructure in remote colocation facilities.
• Experience running and improving operational processes, including automation tooling, in a fast-changing environment.
• Familiarity with common data center operations work such as deployment, migration and decommissioning.
• Ability to handle basic program management tasks such as prioritization, planning, scheduling and status reporting, for example in JIRA.
• Desirable: a bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science or MIS.
• Desirable: direct experience running complex data center or infrastructure projects.
• Desirable: experience installing or maintaining data center and other IT infrastructure, and DCIM tools.
• Desirable: experience improving operational processes in a fast-changing environment.
• Desirable: strong verbal and written communication, problem-solving, attention to detail and interpersonal skills.
• Desirable: proactive, quick to learn, and able to handle several tasks at once.
• Desirable: ability to work in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
• Desirable: ability to handle basic program management tasks such as prioritization, planning, scheduling and status reporting, for example in JIRA.
• Desirable: being a team player.
• Bonus: multilingual, with experience working with infrastructure in several countries.
• Bonus: comfort with remote lights-out and out-of-band access to data center resources.
• Bonus: Linux certifications such as RHCSA.
• Bonus: network certifications such as CCNA, JNCIA or higher.
• Bonus: configuration management tools such as Saltstack, Chef, Puppet or Ansible.
• Bonus: scripting or development in Bash, Python or Go.
• Bonus: familiarity with load balancers and reverse proxies such as Nginx, Varnish, HAProxy or Apache.
• Bonus: experience at a large-scale SaaS vendor.
• You will thrive in a hypergrowth engineering setting. You are self-driven and detail-oriented, with deep knowledge of colocation data centers, network architecture and server technology. You are used to working through partners to deliver infrastructure to remote sites, and you have run operational environments and created new ways to improve delivery efficiency or stability.

Conditions

Pay may vary by work location and level.

Lisbon: estimated base salary 42,000 to 57,000, shown in local currency.

London: estimated base salary 60,000 to 83,000, shown in local currency.

This role is eligible for the company's equity plan.

Some candidates who reach the offer stage may be asked to attend an in-person interview at a the company office or hub.

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the Export Administration Regulations. Any offer may depend on your authorization to receive controlled software or technology without sponsorship for an export license.

Benefits

• The company runs Project Galileo, which since 2014 has given free protection to more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries.
• The Athenian Project, started in 2017, provides free protection and reliability to state and local government election websites, covering more than 425 sites in 33 states.
• The company's free public DNS resolver, 1.1.1.1, is its first consumer service. The company does not store client IP addresses and does not sell user data or use it for ad targeting.