Senior Network Platform Engineer

ABOUT THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Founded in 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL®) is the premier professional ice hockey league in the world and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada.

With more than 1500 employees across the US and Canada, the NHL is a global sports and entertainment organization committed to building healthy and vibrant communities using the sport of hockey. At the NHL, we are looking for dynamic, energetic and impactful individuals who are committed to doing the same by sharing in our philosophy that Hockey is for Everyone.

WHAT WE EXPECT OF YOU

SUMMARY
You operate across Architecture and Engineering, with a deliberate feedback loop to operations partners. Their insights drive your design changes. You ship them. They validate.

We treat network capabilities as products serving internal customers, production, studio, broadcast, and corporate stakeholders. The platforms you build support live games and global media workflows where reliability is broadcast-grade: deterministic, low-latency, zero-tolerance during production windows.

Hybrid environment: AWS, on-prem DC, broadcast venues, studios, edge. You own the network end-to-end across Layer 1-4, physical connectivity through transport, not just the cloud and policy layers. Network security is woven into everything you build, segmentation, zero trust patterns, and policy-as-code are core to the platform, not bolted on. Automation-first, if you do it twice, you automate the third.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Surface architectural gaps from operational patterns; propose design changes backed by data
• Build Terraform modules and CI/CD pipelines (GitLab, Vault) for network and security policy
• Build self-service network capabilities consumed via IaC by other platform teams
• Treat your domain as a product, gather stakeholder feedback, shape the roadmap, measure outcomes
• Define and improve SLIs, SLOs, and stakeholder-facing SLAs for your domain
• Drive reliability for your domain, design for failure, partner with Network Reliability Engineers, and contribute as incidents, design changes, or events demand
• Own observability for your domain (Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus, or equivalent)
• Apply AI/ML to network operations, anomaly detection, predictive capacity, intelligent remediation

QUALIFICATIONS
Knowledge Areas/Experience

Required

• Strong networking fundamentals across Layer 1-4, physical, switching (VLAN, LAG, STP), routing (BGP, OSPF), and transport (load balancing, flow behavior, latency/jitter)
• Network security platforms, Palo Alto NGFW and at least one of Prisma Access, Prisma Cloud, or Cortex; comfort designing segmentation and policy-as-code
• Hands-on Terraform (writing modules, not just consuming them)
• AWS networking at scale (Transit Gateway, VPC, hybrid connectivity)
• On-prem networking at scale, DC fabrics, broadcast venue and studio connectivity, hybrid integration
• Strong scripting skills (Python preferred)
• Not afraid to go into the weeds, packet captures, config diffs, fiber traces, whatever the problem needs
• Cross-functional partnership with Media Engineering, Production, Security, and Operations - translating creative and business needs into network capabilities
• Comfort operating in deadline-driven, broadcast-grade reliability environments

Preferred

• Live broadcast, sports, post-production, or VFX infrastructure experience
• Broadcast-grade networking, low-latency, deterministic, contribution/distribution
• AI/ML applied to network operations (observability, anomaly detection, predictive capacity)
• Reliability engineering background, SLO design, chaos engineering, or failure-mode analysis at scale
• NetDevOps tooling breadth, Ansible, Git, CI/CD pipelines, network APIs alongside Terraform
• SASE / zero trust deployment at scale
• Product thinking applied to infrastructure, treating platforms as services with customers

CORE COMPETENCIES
These core competencies reflect the underlying values that are necessary to represent the National Hockey League:

• Accountability
• Adaptability
• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Inclusion
• Professionalism
• Teamwork & Collaboration

The NHL offers U.S. regular, full-time employees:

Time to Recharge : Utilize our generous Paid Time Off (PTO) to focus on your well-being and ensure a healthy work/life balance. PTO includes paid holidays, vacation, personal and sick days, plus an extra day off for your birthday.

Ability to Focus on your Health: Along with competitive salaries, the NHL offers comprehensive health benefits to employees and their eligible dependents effective on their first day with us - there is no waiting period. The NHL subsidizes a large portion of the health benefits costs, therefore your cost for medical, dental and vision coverage is minimal.


We also offer our employees and members of their household access to our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support mental, physical, and financial health. In addition, employees have access to a digital wellness resource designed to improve health and happiness through courses in sleep, movement, and focus. These services are confidential and at no-cost to our employees.

Childcare Leave: Because your family is the NHL family, employees are offered comprehensive Childcare Leave to welcome your new addition. The primary caregiver to the child is entitled to up to 12 weeks of paid Childcare Leave, at full pay, following the birth, adoption, or placement of a child.

Employees that are not the primary caregiver to the child are entitled to up to 6 weeks of paid Childcare Leave, at full pay, which must be taken within the first 6 months following the birth, adoption, or placement of a child.

Confidence in your Retirement Goals: Participate in the NHL's Savings Plan which includes a 401K(pre-tax and Roth options) plus non-elective (employer) contributions to keep your retirement goals on track.

A Hybrid Work Schedule : The NHL recognizes the value of flexibility in work locations/schedules to help our employees balance work/life priorities. Hybrid work schedules are available for a majority of our roles.

Our New Headquarters: Our new, state of the art, offices are located at One Manhattan West in Hudson Yards. When you're in the office, you can conduct meetings in one of our high-tech conference rooms, have lunch with a view or play in the game room. Employees can also enjoy New York's newest neighborhood that is home to more than 100 shops, culinary experiences, and public artwork.

A Savings for Commuting: Participate in the NHL's pre-tax commuter benefit plan whichhelps offset the financial cost of traveling to and from our office.

NHL Partner Rates: Unlock exclusive pricing from our Partners that include savings on travel, consumer goods and services, plus the NHL Store.

Life at the NHL: In your first few days, you meet with your new teammates and the HR Team. You have the opportunity to learn more about the NHL and our workplace culture. Employees are invited to play hockey during our Tuesday Night Skate at Chelsea Piers, join our Employee Resource Groups and more. You are a part of our team and we encourage you to be your authentic self, adding to our dynamic workplace culture.

SALARY RANGE:

$160-200K

Actual base pay for a successful candidate will be determined based on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to: experience/training, market demands, and geographic location.

When applying, please be sure to include a cover letter with your salary expectations for this role. We thank all applicants for their interest in this opportunity, however only qualified candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. NO EMAILS OR PHONE CALLS PLEASE.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender identity, marital or veteran status, or any other protected class.

Job Questions:

1. This position will be based in our New York City Office. Are you willing and able to commute to our office for this position?
2. If you are not currently living in the tri-state area, are you willing and able to relocate at your own expense for this position?
3. Do you have the legal right to work in the United States?
4. Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship to continue work in the United States?
5. What are your salary expectations for this role? (NOTE: We are NOT asking for your current salary or salary history)
6. How did you hear about this position? Where did you first see this role posted?
7. Please give an example of an instance you used an automation solution to a network experiencing outages, friction, or bottlenecks. What methods did you use to diagnose and address these issues, and what was the network performance result?
8. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your Terraform/Infrastructure as Code?
9. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your AWS networking?
10. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your Layer 2/Layer 3 networking?
11. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your Python/scripting?
12. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your network automation?
13. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your routing protocols (BGP, OSPF)?
14. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your observability/monitoring?
15. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest), how would you rate your incident response?
16. Please describe an instance in which you had to evaluate the design and troubleshoot a multi-layered network that called for a repetitive task automation solution. Also provide context of the scale and scope of the users of this network, and the stakeholders involved.