Principal Network Engineer

Job Description Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s Physical Networking organization builds and operates the global network infrastructure supporting OCI workloads, managing thousands of devices across more than 50 regions. Join the team responsible for network fabrics supporting OCI Dedicated Regions and Multicloud Connectivity. As a hands-on Principal Network Engineer, you’ll serve as a technical lead for a key area of the team’s work. You’ll work with customers to understand network requirements, lead designs and standards, and improve how networks are deployed and operated. You’ll independently drive complex initiatives while influencing team direction and partnering on work that spans teams and organizations. The successful candidate will combine deep networking expertise with automation, disciplined change execution, and sound technical judgment. You will collaborate with network automation, virtual networking, compute, hardware, security, monitoring, region deployment, and operations teams to deliver reliable, secure, and repeatable deployments for our customers. You’ll help peers resolve difficult technical problems, make design tradeoffs clear, and raise the quality of engineering across the team. Responsibilities What you'll do Lead the architecture, design, and operation of data-center fabrics, routing, and secure connectivity supporting OCI’s physical network infrastructure. Translate customer and product requirements into scalable network designs, configuration standards, and deployment strategies; guide technical decisions and tradeoffs for your area. Independently drive complex projects from technical design through validation, deployment, documentation, and operational handoff, coordinating milestones and dependencies across teams. Set direction for network automation and validation in your area; build or guide the development of tools using Python, APIs, Git workflows, and infrastructure-as-code practices. Establish and improve production-change practices, including risk assessment, pre-change checks, post-change verification, and rollback procedures. Lead improvements to monitoring, capacity planning, runbooks, and incident response; resolve difficult issues spanning protocols, devices, optics, and automation. Participate in a periodic on-call rotation; provide technical leadership during large-scale network incidents and drive lasting corrective actions. Lead design reviews, develop repeatable standards and reference patterns, and mentor engineers through technical guidance, reviews, and knowledge sharing. Represent the team in cross-team and cross-organization initiatives, influencing designs and plans that affect physical network reliability, security, and deployment at scale. Required qualifications At least 10 years of relevant network engineering experience, including demonstrated experience leading cross-team technical initiatives, influencing design and delivery decisions, and mentoring engineers. Deep understanding of Layer 2 through Layer 4 networking, IP addressing and subnetting, BGP, OSPF, IPv4, IPv6, TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, NAT, ECMP, and high-availability design. Experience leading the design, deployment, or operation of data-center, cloud, service-provider, or large-enterprise networks. Hands-on experience automating network provisioning, configuration, validation, or operations using Python or another programming language. Experience shaping engineering practices using Git, APIs, CI/CD workflows, automated testing, configuration modeling, or infrastructure-as-code. Experience leading production network changes with appropriate risk assessment, validation, rollback, and change-management controls. Demonstrated ability to diagnose complex issues across network protocols, devices, automation systems, and physical infrastructure, and to guide others through resolution. Experience leading incident response, root-cause analysis, operational readiness, and improvements that prevent recurring issues. Ability to independently drive complex technical work, manage dependencies, and influence decisions across engineering and operations teams. Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear technical designs, explain tradeoffs, and build alignment among stakeholders. Preferred qualifications Two or more years of experience serving as a technical lead for one or more network engineering areas, with responsibility for design direction, technical decisions, and delivery. Experience building or operating hyperscale cloud, service-provider, ISP, or large-scale data-center networks. Experience partnering with cloud networking and platform teams to integrate virtual network services with physical underlay infrastructure. Experience designing Clos or spine-leaf fabrics, EVPN/VXLAN, SDN overlays, traffic engineering, segmentation, and secure service connectivity. Experience with Terraform, Ansible, YANG, OpenConfig, NETCONF, gNMI, or comparable model-driven networking technologies. Experience defining network telemetry and observability practices using SNMP, streaming telemetry, NetFlow/IPFIX, flow logs, dashboards, alerting, and service-level indicators. Knowledge of network-security principles, including ACL and routing-policy management, least privilege, segmentation, MACsec, IPsec, and TLS. Experience with commodity Ethernet platforms, optics, structured cabling, hardware qualification, and network operating-system validation. Experience establishing reusable deployment patterns, automated validation, operational guardrails, or configuration-drift detection across teams. Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools to improve automation, testing, troubleshooting, documentation, or operational efficiency. Disclaimer: Certain U.S. based or U.S. customer or client-facing roles may be required to comply with applicable requirements, such as immunization/occupational health mandates, and/or drug testing requirements. Range and benefit information provided in this posting are specific to the stated locations only US: Hiring Range in USD from: $114,600 to $234,600 per annum. May be eligible for bonus, equity, and compensation deferral. Oracle maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions and locations, as well as reflect Oracle's differing products, industries and lines of business. Candidates are typically placed into the range based on the preceding factors as well as internal peer equity. Oracle US offers a comprehensive benefits package which includes the following: Medical, dental, and vision insurance, including expert medical opinion Short term disability and long term disability Life insurance and AD&D Supplemental life insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child) Health care and dependent care Flexible Spending Accounts Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits 401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company match Paid time off: Flexible Vacation is provided to all eligible employees assigned to a salaried (non-overtime eligible) position. Accrued Vacation is provided to all other employees eligible for vacation benefits. For employees working at least 35 hours per week, the vacation accrual rate is 13 days annually for the first three years of employment and 18 days annually for subsequent years of employment. Vacation accrual is prorated for employees working between 20 and 34 hours per week. Employees working fewer than 20 hours per week are not eligible for vacation. 11 paid holidays Paid sick leave: 72 hours of paid sick leave upon date of hire. Refreshes each calendar year. Unused balance will carry over each year up to a maximum cap of 112 hours. Paid parental leave Adoption assistance Employee Stock Purchase Plan Financial planning and group legal Voluntary benefits including auto, homeowner and pet insurance The role will generally accept applications for at least three calendar days from the posting date or as long as the job remains posted. As part of Oracle's onboarding process and consistent with applicable law, US-based employees are required to complete identity verification, which involves the collection and processing of their biometric information. Accommodations to this requirement may be granted following an individualized assessment. About Us Only Oracle brings together the data, infrastructure, applications, and expertise to power everything from industry innovations to life-saving care. And with AI embedded across our products and services, we help customers turn that promise into a better future for all. Discover your potential at a company leading the way in AI and cloud solutions that impact billions of lives. True innovation starts when everyone is empowered to contribute. That’s why we’re committed to growing a workforce that promotes opportunities for all with competitive benefits that support our people with flexible medical, life insurance, and retirement options. We also encourage employees to give back to their communities through our volunteer programs. We’re committed to including people with disabilities at all stages of the employment process. 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