Director, Network Planning & Architecture

Position Title: Director of Network PlanningYour roleAs Director of Network Planning, you will lead the strategy, planning, and evolution of Digital Realty’s global network infrastructure. You will partner with Technical Program Managers, Network Engineers, Design and Infrastructure Engineers, Field Engineers within DLR, and construction and telecommunications vendors and contractors to define scalable network strategies, strengthen architecture standards, and drive successful business outcomes across the organization.You will help shape long-term network strategy and deliver faster, more effective outcomes for the business and our customers by combining sound network architecture, capacity planning, automation, and repeatable delivery models. Your goal will be to ensure Digital Realty’s network is reliable, scalable,cost-effective, and positioned to support future growth worldwide.Digital Realty’s network supports customers and partners across a global platform of data centers andinterconnection points. Our metro environments sit at the edge of the network, where customers connect directly to critical infrastructure, cloud platforms, and ecosystems. The Network Team is responsible for planning and operating this network reliably and at scale through strong architecture, standardized design patterns, and increasing levels of automation. The team manages the full lifecycle of space, power, and network assets across Digital Realty’s global data centers and metro points of presence. This work begins with long-range planning, capacity strategy, and infrastructure readiness, and continues through architecture, design, deployment, activation, commissioning, and continuous improvement through tooling and automation.What you’ll do Lead Digital Realty’s global network planning strategy, including long-range capacity planning,infrastructure prioritization, and investment alignment to support business growth, customer demand, and service objectives.Lead network capacity deployment planning to ensure infrastructure is delivered in the rightmarkets, at the right time, and at the right scale to support customer demand, productrequirements, and business growth.Drive new market planning and infrastructure readiness by partnering across product, sales,finance, and deployment teams to evaluate demand signals, define requirements, and prioritizeexpansion opportunities.Partner closely with product teams to align network planning, architecture, and deploymentpriorities with product roadmaps, service requirements, and customer experience goals.Establish and govern network architecture standards, design principles, and planning frameworks that enable scalable, resilient, and cost-effective infrastructure across global metro and data center environments.Drive repeatable planning and deployment models by translating architecture strategy intoscalable designs, implementation patterns, and technical requirements for global network expansion.Own the roadmap for planning automation, data-driven workflows, and process standardization to reduce manual effort, improve quality, and increase speed and consistency across theorganization.Drive the strategic use of AI tools to automate planning, analysis, and design workflows, improvedecision quality, identify optimization opportunities, and scale engineering productivity throughmore intelligent and repeatable operating models.Partner across engineering, operations, infrastructure, and business teams to align networkstrategy with service requirements, financial targets, operational readiness, and customercommitments.Build and evolve governance, business processes, and performance measures for networkplanning and design, including topology standards, hardware lifecycle strategy, capacity targets,and risk management practices.What you’ll needExperience leading network planning, architecture, or infrastructure strategy for large-scale Layer 1, Layer 2, or Layer 3 environments.Experience defining architecture standards, design principles, and implementation models across optical, transport, routing, and data center networking environments.Experience leading long-range capacity planning, investment prioritization, and infrastructure roadmap development in telecommunications, hyperscale, data center, or colocation environments.Experience leading network capacity deployment strategies, market expansion planning, and infrastructure readiness for new metros, products, or service launches.Experience defining and advancing an AI-enabled automation strategy using Python, APIs, data driven workflows, automation frameworks, and AI tools to streamline planning, accelerate design decisions, improve forecasting, and reduce manual effort across network engineering processes.Knowledge of fiber types, transport systems, routing infrastructure, and scalable network architecture principles.Experience establishing governance, business processes, and operating models that improve consistency, quality, and execution at scale.Experience leading cross-functional programs and aligning engineering, operations, and business stakeholders around strategic network priorities.Excellent communication, executive presentation, and decision-making skills.A bit about usDigital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.A bit about our team Our Technology & Innovation team strives to innovate alongside our customers and empower their businesses to thrive. We work closely with our customers to develop insights-based, data-driven technical solutions and differentiated value propositions on PlatformDIGITAL across the world. Operating in almost 50 cities globally means we understand how rapidly the world is evolving, so we’ve built a best-in-class development model to qualify, package; and enable cloud to core to edge hybrid IT solutions. Our deep technical heritage, combined with our global footprint, means the Technology Innovation team can create and deploy services and solutions that are at the heart of the digital economy.What we can offer youOur rapidly evolving business sector offers the opportunity to be part of a courageous and passionate team who work together to understand and meet the changing needs of our global customers. Join us and you’ll be part of a supportive and inclusive environment where you can bring your whole self to work. As part of our team, you’ll get to work with people from different business areas, challenge the way we do things and put your ideas into action. We’ll also give you plenty of development opportunities so you can build a rewarding and successful career with us. Apply today, take charge of your career and grow your talents with us.Health and SafetySafety isn't just a priority here at Digital; it's critical to everything we do. Safeguarding lives, protecting assets, and securing data aren't just ideals - they're essential pillars of our commitment to excellence for our people, our partners and our customers. We have a culture of care where every member of Team Digital embraces a relentless pursuit of working safely across Digital Realty. Together we are Safely Powering Progress.Our Compensation PhilosophyDigital Realty offers its employees a highly competitive compensation package, excellent benefits, and an environment that recognizes and rewards your contributions. Central to our compensation philosophy is rewarding our employees for achieving the values and objectives aligned to the company's overall goals and values.Our published pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location. Individual pay is based on additional factors including but not limited to job-related skills, experience, and relevant education and/or training. Moreover, an employee’s total compensation package varies by role and may include salary, cash bonus or commissions, and equity awards not quantified below.Compensation range $170,000 – $190,000. This compensation range represents the Company’s good faith belief as to what it will pay as a base salary for this position at the time of this posting. Benefits: For this role, Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, 401k match, disability benefits, wellness and education benefits, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off, holidays, and more. Full timePosting Date: 2026-07-18