Tech Lead, Mobile Core Network Engineering

TextNow Mobile Core Network Engineering Tech Lead

TextNow is on a mission to make communications affordable and accessible for everyone. As a full MVNO operating our own mobile core network over LTE and 5G NSA, we have the unique advantage of controlling our network infrastructure end-to-end. We operate the HSS, PGW, and other critical network functions, giving us the flexibility to innovate and deliver exceptional service to millions of users.

About the Role

We are looking for a hands-on Tech Lead, Mobile Core Network Engineering to own the health and evolution of our mobile core platform. Our cloud-hosted core runs in AWS, with our mobile core vendor providing managed services for day-to-day operations. This role is the critical bridge between our vendor's Managed Services team and our internal engineering, product, and operations teams.

You'll be the technical owner of the mobile core, combining deep technical expertise with strong coordination skills. You won't just manage vendor deliverables—you'll dive into the technical details, challenge approaches when needed, and ensure our core network evolves to meet the demands of a growing subscriber base. This role has a clear growth path into technical and people leadership as the team scales.

A note on background: We know that people who have operated a mobile core at scale are rare. If you're a strong SRE or infrastructure engineering leader with deep networking knowledge and a track record of managing complex, vendor-operated platforms, we want to hear from you—even if you haven't worked with 3GPP technologies before. We'll invest in helping you build the telco-specific domain knowledge.

Who You Are

Experienced in SRE or Infrastructure Leadership: 7+ years in SRE, infrastructure engineering, or network engineering, with a track record of operating complex, high-availability platforms at scale.

Strong Networking Fundamentals: Deep understanding of IP networking, routing, tunneling protocols, DNS, DPI. You can reason about packet flows across distributed systems and debug from the wire up.

Vendor Management Experience: You've managed vendor or managed-service relationships for critical infrastructure. You know how to review their work, hold them accountable, and coordinate across vendor, operations, and product teams without micromanaging.

AI-First Mindset: You actively use AI tools to accelerate incident triage, anomaly detection, and root cause analysis, and continuously evolve how you apply them to raise the bar on operational excellence.

Technical Leadership & Ownership: You've provided technical direction and mentorship to other engineers, see problems before they're escalated, and drive them to resolution. You enjoy technical leadership and want to grow into leading a team.

Incident Management & Observability: Comfortable handling production incidents, analyzing root causes, and implementing long-term fixes. Hands-on experience with observability platforms like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, or the ELK stack.

AWS Infrastructure: Experience with AWS (EC2, EKS, VPC networking) or equivalent cloud platform.

Comfortable Operating in Ambiguity: You don't need to have all the answers on day one, but you know how to find them. You're motivated to learn new technical domains and apply that learning quickly.

You'll stand out if you have:

• Experience with mobile core network operations (LTE/5G EPC/NSA)—hands-on experience with HSS, PGW/SGW, PCRF, or similar network functions
• Understanding of 3GPP standards, Diameter, GTP, or mobile packet core architecture
• Experience at an MVNO or with carrier/MVNO-specific network challenges
• Familiarity with IMS or VoLTE deployments, SIP, SMPP, SMTP

What You'll Do

• Own the Mobile Core Platform: Take end-to-end accountability for the health, performance, and evolution of TextNow's mobile core (HSS, PGW, PCRF, and related functions running in AWS). Drive capacity planning and platform evolution to support growing scale.
• Manage Vendor Relationships: Serve as the primary technical interface with our mobile core vendor's Managed Services team and TextNow's broader carrier partners. Review vendor-proposed changes and architectural decisions, catch errors before production, and hold partners accountable to SLAs. Oversee vendor software upgrade cycles, coordinate upgrade windows, and ensure smooth rollouts.
• Build AI-Driven Operational Capabilities: Design and deliver AI tooling to improve operational health, including agentic performance analysis, automated diagnostics, and accelerated root cause analysis. Continuously evolve how the team uses AI to raise the bar on operational excellence.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Provide technical direction and mentorship across the Telecom Engineering pod, growing into people leadership as the team scales.
• Incident Response & On-Call Support: Participate in an on-call rotation, troubleshoot issues, and drive incident resolution to minimize downtime. Conduct post-mortems and implement corrective actions to enhance reliability.
• Cross-Functional Coordination: Partner with product, engineering, and other pods to prioritize and sequence network asks. Translate internal requirements into actionable work for the team and vendors.
• Platform Evolution: Contribute to the long-term technical roadmap for the core network. Develop and improve monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling for core network health. Evaluate new technologies and drive initiatives to reduce operational burden and increase automation.

Why TextNow?

• Rare opportunity to own a mobile core network at a full MVNO—not just configure someone else's
• High-impact role: your work directly affects millions of users' connectivity
• Small, senior team where your decisions and leadership shape the platform's direction
• Remote-friendly culture with a collaborative, low-ego engineering organization
• Competitive compensation, equity, and comprehensive benefits

$160,000 - $207,000 a year Base Salary Range Canada (CAD) Salary Range: $160,000 - $207,000 US – National (USD): $148,000 -$259,000 US High-Cost Locations (USD) - NYC, CT, NJ, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego: $136,300 - $237,600 US San Francisco Bay Area (USD): $148,700 -$259,200 This role does not require or confer professional engineer status. Our total rewards package goes beyond base salary. We offer a comprehensive benefits program, an annual performance-based bonus, and equity opportunities that ensure you share in the success you help create. We know that exceptional talent doesn't always fit neatly into a range, so if you're passionate about our mission and think you can make a difference, we encourage you to apply, even if your compensation expectations are outside the listed range. Final compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors, including your skills, experience, and location. Our goal is to offer a competitive package that reflects the impact and expertise you bring to the team. Let's chat!

More about TextNow

Our culture

We're proud of the culture that we've built at TextNow, but one of the most common questions we hear is 'how do you continue to sustain it as the world and the company continues to change?' The reality is that we're only able to keep up because each and every TextNovian contributes to our culture through being involved, by living our values, sharing feedback, embracing change and more!

Our values

Customer Obsessed: We strive to have a deep understanding of our customers.

Do Right By Our People: We treat each other with fairness, respect, and integrity.

Accept the Challenge: We adopt a 'Yes, We Can' mindset to achieve ambitious goals.

Act Like an Owner: We treat this company like it's our own... because it is!

Give a Damn: We are deeply committed and passionate about our work and achieving results.

Our benefits and more

This is a brief overview of the benefits that TextNow offers its employees. More complete details can be found in TextNow's Benefit Guide and legal plan documents, which are available to employees on or shortly after their start date with TextNow. The benefits listed herein are for illustrative purposes only and may change from time-to-time in TextNow's sole discretion.

Free phone service

Strong work life blend

Flexible work arrangements (work-from-home, remote, or access to one of our office spaces)

Employee stock options