Senior Principal Engineer, Enterprise Networking Architecture, Automation and AI

About this role

Who are we?

Equinix is the world's digital infrastructure company®, shortening the path to connectivity to enable the innovations that enrich our work, life and planet.

A place where tech thinkers and future builders turn bold ideas into breakthrough experiences, we welcome your unique perspective.

Help us challenge assumptions, uncover bias, and remove barriers-because progress starts with fresh ideas. You'll find belonging, purpose, and a team that welcomes you-because when you feel valued, you're empowered to do your best work.

Job Summary

Equinix is seeking a Sr Principal Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority for the architecture, automation, telemetry, and continued evolution of our global corporate enterprise network, known as the GEN network.

This individual-contributor role combines deep network architecture and protocol expertise, hands-on Python automation, and applied artificial intelligence. The successful candidate will define the future-state architecture of the GEN network, establish global standards and reference designs, and lead a three-to-five-year modernization strategy.

The Sr Principal Engineer will bridge network engineering and software development, helping Equinix move from manual and tool-specific practices toward automated, testable, observable, policy-driven, and AI-augmented network operations.

This role requires a mature technical leader who can evaluate complex network designs and automation capabilities, influence global engineering teams without formal authority, and communicate architecture decisions to executives through business value, risk, cost, security, resiliency, and operational impact.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture and Strategy

• Define the target-state architecture and multiyear strategy for the global GEN corporate enterprise network.

• Provide architectural direction across global LAN, WAN, campus, branch, wireless, corporate data center, cloud connectivity, secure access, network security, carrier services, and resiliency.

• Establish global standards, reference architectures, design patterns, technical guardrails, and architecture-governance practices.

• Identify technical debt, lifecycle risks, capacity needs, architectural constraints, and modernization opportunities.

• Own most corporate network architecture decisions while aligning with security, cloud, infrastructure, enterprise architecture, risk, and other Equinix standards.

• Evaluate architecture alternatives and emerging technologies based on scalability, availability, security, operational readiness, cost, and measurable business value.

Network Engineering and Automation

• Provide deep technical leadership in routing, switching, traffic engineering, control-plane behavior, network resiliency, and complex failure scenarios.

• Apply expert knowledge of BGP and OSPF, with strong working knowledge of IS-IS and large-scale routing concepts.

• Guide architecture involving EVPN, VXLAN, leaf-spine fabrics, Layer 2 and Layer 3 boundaries, multihoming, segmentation, SD-WAN, cloud interconnection, and high-speed networking.

• Personally write, review, troubleshoot, or materially guide Python used for network automation, telemetry, and data processing.

• Translate network requirements into reliable software-enabled workflows in partnership with network engineers and software developers.

• Establish network-as-code practices using Python, Ansible, Terraform, Git, APIs, structured data, and GitOps.

• Define authoritative sources of truth for intended network state, inventory, topology, configuration, policy, and service data.

• Establish production controls for testing, configuration validation, drift detection, compliance, deployment, rollback, and post-change verification.

• Evaluate multi-vendor and open-networking technologies based on standards, interoperability, operational maturity, supportability, and strategic fit.

Telemetry, Observability, and AI

• Define enterprise strategy for network telemetry, observability, topology intelligence, monitoring, and operational analytics.

• Integrate routing, topology, configuration, inventory, performance, flow, event, log, and security data to improve network visibility and decision-making.

• Advance service-aware and intent-aware observability, dependency mapping, digital twins, and proactive network operations.

• Lead practical application of AI to network architecture, engineering, and operations.

• Develop AI-enabled capabilities such as anomaly detection, event correlation, root-cause analysis, predictive capacity planning, configuration analysis, intelligent troubleshooting, incident triage, and remediation recommendations.

• Ensure AI capabilities use reliable data and appropriate security, privacy, validation, explainability, human oversight, and operational controls.

• Clearly distinguish genuine AI-enabled capabilities from conventional scripting, rules-based automation, and vendor marketing.

• Connect AI initiatives to measurable improvements in availability, security, operating efficiency, risk reduction, and engineering productivity.

Technical Leadership and Influence

• Present architecture recommendations, options, tradeoffs, risks, investment needs, and expected outcomes to technical and executive audiences.

• Lead architecture reviews, technical councils, engineering communities, and cross-functional decision forums.

• Build alignment across network engineering, software development, cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, operations, and enterprise architecture teams.

• Mentor Principal, Senior Principal, Senior Staff, and other senior engineers and architects.

• Influence vendor roadmaps and represent Equinix credibly in technical, architecture, vendor, and industry forums.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in corporate enterprise networking, network engineering, network architecture, network automation, infrastructure…