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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Data Center Network Architect - **Company:** Span, Incorporated - **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Border Gateway Protocol, Computer Clusters, Computer Networks, Data Centers, DDoS Mitigation, Linux, Ethernet, Network Interface Controllers, Failover, Network Topologies, InfiniBand, IPv4, IPv6, Virtual Private Networks (VPN), Internet Service Provider, Python (Programming Language), Network Architecture, Network Connections, Routing, Peering, Remote Direct Memory Access, Ansible, TCP/IP, Computer Network Operations, High Performance Computing, Firewalls (Computer Science), Data Center Networking, Kubernetes, Low Latency, Deployment Automation, Model Inference, Open Network Automation Platform - **Published:** October 29, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.careerbuilder.com/job-details/data-center-network-architect-san-francisco-ca--98ad3e72-c73b-4453-a469-b54f191cdae5 ## About the Role Network Operations Center, Network Architecture/Engineering, Computer Networks, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Network Operations Center, Oil and Gas, Residential Construction, Electricity, Network Architecture/Engineering, Network Connectivity, * 8+ years of relevant network engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated expertise, including ownership of production architecture and hands-on implementation. * Strong experience with both data center networks and WAN or ISP connectivity across multiple sites. * Deep understanding of TCP/IP, BGP, IPv4/IPv6, routing, switching, segmentation, VPNs, firewalls, QoS, and high-availability design. * Practical understanding of fiber access and carrier service models, including how to validate real performance, availability, and commercial service commitments. * Experience designing and troubleshooting high-speed server networks, including NICs, optics, cabling, MTU, congestion, and oversubscription. * Ability to translate application traffic patterns and service objectives into network requirements, and explain performance, resilience, and cost tradeoffs clearly. * Hands-on Linux troubleshooting and network automation using Python, Ansible, or comparable tools, with version-controlled configurations and disciplined change management. * A record of taking ambiguous problems from design through deployment and production support, working effectively with engineering teams, vendors, and field operators., * Production experience with GPU clusters, AI inference, HPC, InfiniBand, RoCE, RDMA, or NCCL performance analysis. * Experience with EVPN/VXLAN, leaf-spine fabrics, cloud interconnects, internet peering, or operating an autonomous system. * Experience operating a large fleet of unattended edge sites, including zero-touch provisioning, carrier-grade NAT constraints, and remote recovery. * Familiarity with Kubernetes networking, multi-tenant compute platforms, and network-aware workload scheduling. * Experience qualifying carrier services and negotiating technical requirements across multiple providers or regions. ## Description We are looking for a Network Architect to own the design, deployment, and operation of the network connecting XFRA's distributed compute fleet. Your scope will span high-performance networking within GPU clusters, north-south connectivity between compute sites and customers, and the wide-area architecture connecting our fleet to cloud platforms and compute partners. You will turn workload requirements into practical designs that balance performance, availability, security, deployment speed, and cost. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will select and configure equipment, qualify ISP services, automate deployments, troubleshoot production issues, and establish the standards that allow our network to scale. You will work closely with compute, orchestration, security, deployment and commercial teams. What you'll do * Own the network architecture. Develop reference designs for residential nodes and larger commercial GPU clusters, including routing, switching, security gateways, addressing, management access, physical connectivity, and capacity planning. * Engineer data center connectivity. Design north-south paths for customer traffic, model distribution, storage access, and fleet management, alongside east-west fabrics for communication between servers. Evaluate high-speed Ethernet, InfiniBand, and RoCE against workload requirements, including bandwidth, latency, congestion, and failure behavior. * Select and qualify fiber services. Evaluate shared PON broadband, dedicated internet access, Ethernet private lines, wavelength services, and dark fiber where appropriate. Assess committed versus advertised bandwidth, oversubscription, symmetry, latency, jitter, packet loss, public addressing, routing options, service guarantees, repair commitments, lead times, and total cost. * Build provider relationships. Work directly with ISPs and carriers on service availability, technical requirements, provisioning, acceptance testing, and incident escalation. Verify physical path diversity and shared dependencies when designing redundant connectivity. * Optimize the distributed fleet. Define when sites should connect directly to the internet, through regional aggregation, or through private interconnects. Evaluate transit, peering, cloud connectivity, traffic engineering, and failover options using measured performance and economics. * Partner with orchestration engineering. Provide network topology, capacity, and health signals that support workload placement, traffic steering, and recovery. Account for model transfers, request traffic, and distributed inference communication when determining which workloads can run efficiently within or across sites. * Build security and resilience into deployments. Implement tenant isolation, separation of compute and management traffic, encrypted connectivity, access controls, and DDoS mitigation with the security team. Design remote recovery and appropriate out-of-band access for unattended sites. * Automate and operate at scale. Build repeatable provisioning, configuration validation, staged changes, rollback, and inventory management. Establish telemetry, service objectives, alerting, runbooks, and acceptance tests; lead network incident diagnosis and corrective actions.