Senior Optical Network Engineer II

Job Description

Job Description

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025. Learn more at 

What You'll Do:

We are building a global optical backbone designed to support infrastructure at massive scale. We are looking for experienced Optical Network Engineers to help design, build, operate, and evolve the optical network that underpins our global IP backbone.

This is a senior engineering role for engineers with deep, hands-on experience designing and operating production optical networks. You will work across the complete optical lifecycle, from dark fiber and photonic engineering through DWDM system design, deployment, capacity expansion, automation, monitoring, and production operations.

You will work closely with IP Backbone Engineering and Network Architecture to ensure that the optical and IP layers are designed together to provide predictable capacity, physical diversity, failure isolation, and resiliency.

We are specifically looking for engineers who understand the underlying optical network, not just how to configure individual platforms.

About the role:

You will help design, build, and operate our global optical backbone.

You will:

• Design, engineer and operate long-haul, metro, and data-center interconnect optical networks.
• Engineer DWDM systems across dark-fiber infrastructure.
• Design optical paths including amplification, regeneration, wavelength planning, spectrum allocation, and optical power budgets.
• Engineer and operate C-band and L-band optical systems.
• Deploy, configure, operate, and troubleshoot Nokia, Ciena and other optical platforms.
• Commission new fiber spans, wavelengths, and optical systems.
• Perform fiber characterization and validate new dark-fiber routes before production deployment.
• Analyze span loss, connector loss, reflectance, dispersion, OSNR, Q-factor/Q-margin, BER, and other optical performance characteristics.
• Troubleshoot complex optical impairments and fiber-related issues using platform telemetry and appropriate optical test equipment.
• Design amplifier chains and understand EDFA and Raman amplification requirements.
• Engineer coherent optical transmission across metro and long-haul networks.
• Plan and execute network capacity expansions.
• Develop standards for optical network architecture, deployment, commissioning, and operations.
• Build monitoring and telemetry that identifies optical degradation before it becomes a production-impacting failure.
• Participate in incident response and root-cause analysis for optical network events.
• Work directly with dark-fiber providers, carriers, data-center operators, and equipment vendors.
• Evaluate and qualify new optical platforms, coherent optics, and photonic technologies.
• Develop automation and tooling that allows the optical network to scale without equivalent growth in manual operational work.
• Mentor other engineers and help establish the technical standards and engineering culture of a new optical networking team.

Who You Are:

This is a senior-level position. Candidates should have significant hands-on experience designing, deploying, and operating large-scale production optical networks.

Required Experience

• Strong hands-on experience with both Ciena and Nokia optical networking platforms.
• Experience should include production deployment, configuration, troubleshooting, software lifecycle, hardware troubleshooting, and operational support—not simply exposure to the platforms.
• Strong experience with dark-fiber networks, including:
  • Fiber characterization and acceptance testing.
  • Optical loss budgets.
  • ILA site design.
  • OTDR testing and interpretation.
  • Connector and splice loss.
  • Reflectance and ORL.
  • Chromatic dispersion.
  • Polarization-related impairments.
  • Fiber types and characteristics.
  • Physical route diversity and shared-risk analysis.
  • Troubleshooting degraded and failed fiber spans.
• Deep understanding of DWDM and optical transmission technologies, including:
  • Coherent optical transmission.
  • C-band and L-band systems.
  • ROADMs.
  • EDFAs and Raman amplification.
  • Coherent pluggable optics.
  • 400G and 800G optical transmission.
  • ZR and ZR+ technologies.
  • FEC and pre-/post-FEC performance.
  • OSNR and ESNR.
  • Q-factor and Q-margin.
  • Chromatic dispersion.
  • PMD and PDL.
  • Optical power management.
  • Wavelength and spectrum planning.
  • Amplification and regeneration.
  • Alien wavelengths and multi-vendor optical environments.
• You should be comfortable taking a proposed dark-fiber route and determining how to turn it into a production optical system.
• Candidates must have significant hands-on experience with optical platforms from both:
  • Ciena - such as Waveserver, 6500/RLS, or comparable Ciena photonic and coherent transport platforms.
  • Nokia - Nokia optical transport, photonic line systems, coherent optics, or related platforms.
• Experience designing and operating multi-vendor optical environments is highly desirable.

Preferred:

• Experience with IP networking is strongly preferred. You do not need to be an IP routing specialist, but you should understand how large IP backbones consume optical infrastructure and how failures propagate between the optical and IP layers.
• Experience with technologies such as the following is beneficial:
  • BGP.
  • IS-IS.
  • MPLS.
  • Segment Routing.
  • IP backbone architectures.
  • Juniper, Nokia, or similar service-provider routing platforms.
• Experience with Python or another programming language is strongly preferred. Useful experience includes:
  • Python.
  • REST APIs.
  • NETCONF/YANG.
  • gNMI.
  • OpenConfig.
  • Network automation frameworks.
  • Configuration generation and validation.
  • Git-based engineering workflows.
  • Telemetry and time-series monitoring systems.
• You do not need to be a software engineer, but you should be comfortable using software and automation to solve network engineering problems.

What Success Looks Like

Successful engineers on this team will be able to independently take ownership of complex optical engineering problems. That might mean designing a new long-haul dark-fiber route, determining amplification and regeneration requirements, troubleshooting an unexpected Q-margin degradation, analyzing an OTDR trace after a fiber event, commissioning a new DWDM system, automating wavelength deployment, or working with IP Backbone Engineering to determine whether a proposed network design actually provides physical diversity.

Most importantly, you will help us build an optical backbone that can continue scaling while remaining understandable, observable, resilient, and operationally manageable.

Wondering if you're a good fit?

We believe in investing in our people, and value candidates who can bring their own diversified experiences to our teams – even if you aren't a 100% skill or experience match.

Why CoreWeave?

At CoreWeave, we work hard, have fun, and move fast! We're in an exciting stage of hyper-growth that you will not want to miss out on. We're not afraid of a little chaos, and we're constantly learning. Our team cares deeply about how we build our product and how we work together, which is represented through our core values:

• Be Curious at Your Core
• Act Like an Owner
• Empower Employees
• Deliver Best-in-Class Client Experiences
• Achieve More Together

We support and encourage an entrepreneurial outlook and independent thinking. We foster an environment that encourages collaboration and enables the development of innovative solutions to complex problems. As we get set for takeoff, the organization's growth opportunities are constantly expanding. You will be surrounded by some of the best talent in the industry, who will want to learn from you, too. Come join us!

The base salary range for this role is $165,000 to $220,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. We strive for both market alignment and internal equity when determining compensation. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility). 

What We Offer

The range we've posted represents the typical compensation range for this role. To determine actual compensation, we review the market rate for each candidate which can include a variety of factors. These include qualifications, experience, interview performance, and location.

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a variety of benefits to support your needs. The benefits below reflect our US-based offerings for full-time employees; for roles in other locations, benefits vary and are shared during the hiring process. These include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance - 100% paid for by CoreWeave
• Company-paid Life Insurance 
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance 
• Short and long-term disability insurance 
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• Tuition Reimbursement 
• Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
• Mental Wellness Benefits through Spring Health 
• Family-Forming support provided by Carrot
• Paid Parental Leave 
• Flexible, full-service childcare support with Kinside
• 401(k) with a generous employer match
• Flexible PTO
• Catered lunch each day in our office and data center locations
• A casual work environment
• A work culture focused on innovative disruption

California Applicants

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Equal Opportunity & Accommodations

CoreWeave is an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace. All qualified applicants and candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information.

As part of this commitment and consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) , CoreWeave will ensure that qualified applicants and candidates with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact: View email address on ziprecruiter.com.

Export Control Compliance

This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency.  CoreWeave may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.