Backbone & Peering Network Architect

Our client is seeking an experienced Backbone & Peering Network Architect to lead the design and architecture of large-scale data center backbone networks, WAN connectivity, cloud interconnects, and customer peering environments supporting high-performance computing and AI infrastructure. This role will be responsible for defining scalable, resilient, and secure network architectures that support high-bandwidth, low-latency workloads across data center, cloud, carrier, and customer environments.

Backbone & Peering Network Architect
Location: Dallas, TX
Work Arrangement: Hybrid, 3 days onsite / 2 days remote
Employment Type: Direct Hire
Overview
Our client is seeking an experienced Backbone & Peering Network Architect to lead the design and architecture of large-scale data center backbone networks, WAN connectivity, cloud interconnects, and customer peering environments supporting high-performance computing and AI infrastructure.

This role will be responsible for defining scalable, resilient, and secure network architectures that support high-bandwidth, low-latency workloads across data center, cloud, carrier, and customer environments.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience in data center networking, carrier-grade routing, peering ecosystems, traffic engineering, and multi-tenant network design, along with the ability to develop architectural standards that support both current operations and long-term infrastructure growth.
Key Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and evolution of large-scale data center backbone and data center interconnect (DCI) environments.
• Design highly available, scalable, and resilient network architectures supporting HPC, AI/ML, and other performance-intensive workloads.
• Develop and maintain reference architectures for WAN connectivity, carrier interconnects, cloud service provider connectivity, and backbone expansion.
• Define architectural standards for routing, traffic engineering, redundancy, failover, telemetry, and network observability.
• Design and optimize high-capacity connectivity between data centers, cloud platforms, carriers, customers, and external network providers.
• Develop secure multi-tenant networking architectures that provide customer isolation, predictable performance, and SLA adherence.
• Establish standards for peering, transit, interconnection, and network capacity management.
• Align backbone architecture with long-term capacity forecasts, infrastructure expansion, and business growth.
• Partner with Solutions Architects, platform teams, and infrastructure engineering teams to ensure network designs align with application and workload requirements.
• Ensure security, segmentation, compliance, monitoring, and operational visibility are embedded throughout the network architecture.
• Evaluate routing policies, traffic flows, bandwidth requirements, latency, and failure scenarios across large-scale distributed environments.
• Support capacity modeling, topology simulations, and digital twin initiatives for network planning and performance analysis.
• Evaluate emerging networking technologies and recommend solutions that improve scalability, resiliency, performance, and operational efficiency.
• Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance to engineering and operations teams responsible for implementing network designs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Network Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• 7+ years of experience designing or architecting large-scale data center, backbone, service provider, or carrier networks.
• Deep expertise with modern data center networking architectures, including:
  • Leaf-spine / Clos fabrics
  • EVPN
  • VXLAN
  • BGP
  • Large-scale Layer 3 architectures
• Strong experience with WAN architecture, carrier connectivity, internet peering, transit, and interconnect strategies.
• Strong understanding of routing policy, traffic engineering, redundancy, failover, network convergence, and capacity planning.
• Experience designing highly available, high-bandwidth, low-latency network environments.
• Experience with multi-tenant network segmentation and secure customer connectivity.
• Strong understanding of network security, observability, telemetry, monitoring, and performance management.
• Experience supporting large-scale data center, hyperscale, HPC, or distributed infrastructure environments.
• Strong documentation skills with the ability to develop network standards, diagrams, reference architectures, and technical design documentation.
• Ability to communicate complex network concepts effectively to engineering teams, leadership, customers, and other stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• Experience supporting HPC, AI/ML, GPU-accelerated computing, or large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience designing networks for high-bandwidth and latency-sensitive workloads.
• Knowledge of cloud connectivity and private interconnect technologies across major cloud providers.
• Experience with large-scale infrastructure monitoring, network automation, capacity modeling, or simulation platforms.
• Familiarity with digital twin concepts and network topology modeling.
• Experience working with telecommunications carriers, colocation providers, internet exchanges, or cloud network providers.
• Previous technical leadership, architecture leadership, or large-scale infrastructure project experience.

Work Authorization
Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship now or in the future.
Benefits & Perks

• 100% employer-paid medical coverage through the company-sponsored high-deductible health plan.
• Employer-paid dental and vision coverage for employees and eligible family members.
• 401(k) with 100% company match on employee contributions up to 6%.
• 25 days of paid time off plus 12 company holidays.
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Employer-paid life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability coverage.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Health Savings Account options with company contributions.
• Flexible Spending Account options.
• Additional voluntary benefits and wellness programs.
• Company-provided lunch stipend.