Sr Principal Engineer, Enterprise Networking Architecture

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Job Summary

Equinix is seeking a world-class Sr Principal Engineer to serve as the preeminent technical authority for Enterprise Networking Architecture within the Digital Infrastructure Organization (DIO). This is a pure individual contributor role with no direct reports, carrying ultimate accountability for defining, governing, and evolving the global networking architecture and long-term strategy across the enterprise.

This leader will own the end-to-end enterprise networking architecture—spanning campus, datacenter, cloud interconnection, carrier services, and secure access—while setting a bold, forward-looking vision for modern, secure, AI-augmented networking. The role requires deep technical mastery, architectural judgment at massive scale, and the ability to influence across global teams and executive leadership without formal authority.

Responsibilities

• Act as the Final Technical Authority: Serve as the primary interface to DIO leadership and executive stakeholders on all matters of enterprise networking architecture. Function as the ultimate escalation point for complex, cross-domain architectural decisions

• Own the Global Networking Architecture: Define and govern the holistic enterprise networking architecture across LAN, WAN, datacenter fabrics, cloud connectivity, wireless, edge/access, firewalls, secure remote access, and carrier interconnects

• Set and Enforce Standards: Establish, document, and govern reference architectures, design patterns, and best practices—ensuring consistency, resilience, and security across all regions and business units

• Drive Global Alignment: Partner closely with cloud, security, infrastructure, application, and edge architecture teams to align strategies, resolve architectural conflicts, and accelerate enterprise-wide modernization

• Lead Long-Term Strategy: Author and maintain 5-year global networking roadmaps, including technology evaluations, risk assessments, architectural trade-offs, and executive-ready recommendations grounded in a big-picture, future-focused perspective

• Architect at Scale: Design high-performance, secure, and resilient connectivity solutions across a broad technology landscape, including:

  • Enterprise and data center networking (Cisco, Juniper, Arista, whitebox)

  • Next-generation security platforms (Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco)

  • Wireless platforms (Mist AI, Meraki)

  • Out-of-band and terminal access (ZPE, Opengear)

  • Carrier and managed connectivity (MPLS, VPLS, P2P, Metro Ethernet, SD-WAN, and emerging alternatives)

• Champion AI-Augmented Networking: Lead the integration of AI across networking and operations—spanning AIOps, predictive analytics, autonomous remediation, threat detection, capacity planning, and configuration intelligence—while accounting for the networking demands of AI workloads and edge inference

• Advance Observability and Automation: Define enterprise-wide strategies for telemetry, monitoring, and observability (e.g., streaming telemetry, eBPF, AI-driven anomaly detection) to enable proactive, automated operations

• Shape the Industry: Identify emerging trends, influence vendor roadmaps, pioneer next-generation architectures, and contribute to industry standards and technical communities

• Represent Equinix Externally: Act as a visible thought leader through patents, publications, standards participation, and keynote presentations at leading industry forums (e.g., NANOG, RSA, Black Hat)

• Elevate Engineering Excellence: Mentor senior and principal engineers, lead architecture review boards and technical guilds, and foster strong collaboration across the organization

Qualifications

• Proven years of experience in enterprise-scale networking and security