Principal Software Engineer, Forwarding Plane

About the Role

Alkira, a Lumen company, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Forwarding Plane to lead the architecture, design, and evolution of our next-generation cloud networking Forwarding Plane platform. This is a highly visible technical leadership role responsible for building and scaling the core packet-processing infrastructure that powers Alkira's cloud networking and security services.

You will own critical Forwarding Plane technologies including flow /session management, NAT, policy enforcement, secure cloud connectivity, and traffic optimization. As a hands-on technical leader, you will drive architectural decisions, develop high-performance networking software, and mentor engineering teams while helping define the future of cloud networking infrastructure.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in systems programming, deep knowledge in VPP/DPDK and other kernel bypass technologies, cloud networking, Linux internals, and high-performance packet processing with a passion for solving complex distributed systems challenges.

Location: This position is a hybrid role and requires onsite collaboration with the team at our San Jose, CA office 2 - 3 times during the week

What You'll Do

Platform Architecture & Ownership

• Own the architecture, design, implementation, and long-term technical roadmap of Alkira's core Forwarding Plane platform.

• Define scalable and resilient networking architectures supporting enterprise-grade cloud networking and security services.

• Drive technical strategy for Forwarding Plane reliability, scalability, observability, and maintainability.

• Establish engineering standards and best practices across Forwarding Plane development effort

High-Performance Networking Development

• Design and develop high-performance packet-processing systems and networking services.

• Build and enhance Forwarding Plane components including:

• Flow/Session management

• Network Address Translation (NAT)

• Policy enforcement

• Traffic steering and load balancing

• IPsec and secure tunnel processing

• Cloud connectivity services

• Develop performance-critical software in C for Linux-based environments.

• Optimize packet-processing pipelines for throughput, latency, and resource efficiency.

• Expertise in cloud networking across AWS, Azure, GCP and other cloud service providers

• Perform deep performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and tuning of production systems.
  

Performance Engineering

• Drive end-to-end performance optimization across the networking stack.

• Leverage modern packet-processing frameworks such as DPDK and VPP.

• Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies including:

• Hardware acceleration

• Kernel bypass technologies

• Cloud-native networking innovations

• Perform deep performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and tuning of production systems.
  

Technical Leadership

• Lead architecture reviews and drive technical decision-making across teams.

• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers on networking and systems design.

• Partner with product management, platform engineering, and security teams to deliver strategic initiatives.

• Influence technology direction and guide the adoption of networking best practices across the organization.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline; Master's degree preferred.

• 12+ years of software engineering experience with significant focus on networking and systems software.

• Expert proficiency in C.

• Deep understanding of Linux operating systems, networking subsystems, and kernel internals.

• Extensive systems programming experience in performance-sensitive environments.

• Strong expertise in TCP/IP networking fundamentals and protocols.

• Hands-on experience developing high-performance Forwarding Plane or packet-processing software.

• Deep knowledge of:
  
  • NAT
  • Stateful connection tracking
  • IPsec
  • Routing and forwarding technologies
  • Firewall and policy enforcement systems
  • Network security concepts
  • Experience with DPDK, VPP, or similar high-performance packet-processing frameworks.