Principal System Engineer

As a Principal System Engineer, you will play a critical role in modernizing and transforming our multi–data center infrastructure. You will guide the systems engineering function through a major architectural shift as we deploy a new network across our data centers.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of systems engineering, networking, and data center operations. You’ll take ownership of evaluating downstream impacts of network changes on servers, applications, clustering, and failover configurations; redesigning system parameters; planning cutover activities; and coordinating with multiple technology teams to ensure a smooth and disruption-free migration. Your work will directly influence the reliability, performance, and future readiness of our enterprise environment.

Key duties/ responsibilities

• Lead efforts to transition servers and enterprise systems from spanned VLANs to newly designed VLANs in alignment with the new network architecture.
• Assess downstream impact of VLAN changes on applications, clustering, failover, and dependencies.
• Plan and coordinate IP addressing, routing adjustments, and system reconfiguration activities across multiple teams.
• Create detailed migration runbooks and risk mitigation plans.
• Work alongside network engineering to support the rollout of the new network in data centers.
• Validate system connectivity, firewall dependencies, and network segmentation during and after deployment.
• Provide technical guidance and clarity on system impacts, sequencing, timelines, and required testing.
• Own the systems engineering workstream for data center modernization projects.
• Ensure systems are compliant with architectural standards, security mandates, and operational best practices

Skills Required:

• 10+ years of experience in systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, or data center operations.
• Deep expertise in enterprise networking concepts from a systems perspective, including VLANs, routing, firewalls, and segmentation.
• Strong experience with storage networking, including SAN fabrics, multipathing, zoning, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, and understanding how storage networks interact with clustered and virtualized environments.
• Strong understanding of clustered services, high availability, and application dependency mapping.
• Extensive experience supporting large data centers, multi-site architectures, and migration projects.
• Proficiency with Windows/Linux servers, virtualization platforms, configuration management, and automation tools.
• Excellent analytical skills to assess downstream impact of infrastructure changes.
• Strong communication and coordination skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally in large teams.

Nice to have:

• Experience with large-scale data center modernization or infrastructure transformation programs.
• Hands-on exposure to automation tools such as Ansible, Terraform, or PowerShell DSC for system configuration and network-aware deployments.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and hybrid connectivity models.
• Experience working with container platforms (Kubernetes, OpenShift) and associated networking/storage implications.
• Understanding of load balancing technologies (F5, NGINX, HAProxy) and application delivery concepts.
• Skills in monitoring and observability platforms (Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, ELK, Zabbix, etc.).
• Familiarity with identity and access management, including Active Directory, Radius/TACACS, or modern IAM solutions.
• Experience with disaster recovery planning, multi-site failover, and business continuity design.
• Experience with scripting or programming (Python, PowerShell, Bash) for automation or orchestration workflows.

Experience

• 10+ Years