Lead Network Engineer - Backbone Engineering

Engineer at Salesforce, you will be part of the Infrastructure Strategy and Data Center Operations team, a dynamic, global team delivering and supporting technology infrastructure in the Salesforce Global Network to meet the substantial growth needs of the business. In this role, you will collaborate with field teams, vendor sourcing teams, Global Network Operations teams, and application owners who are delivering innovative solutions in an agile, and dynamic environment. A successful candidate will have the ability to communicate and demonstrate both deep and broad knowledge across multiple areas of information technology in support of a SaaS infrastructure. We are looking for enthusiastic technologists who thrive on efficiency by contributing to the development of standards, processes, and automation requirements that lead to operational excellence

The Backbone Engineering team is responsible for network capacity and connectivity strategy for the Salesforce core network, including peering relationships, capacity planning, decision making for new PoP builds. The team is also responsible for the design and maintenance of backbone routing architecture including any automation to make configuration changes easier and more predictable. The Salesforce Backbone is the architecture over which Salesforce customers transit to have access to their Salesforce applications and data. Customer success and trust are beacons for how the team approaches engineering on the Salesforce core network.

Responsibilities Include:

• Act as a liaison with the vendor sourcing team

• Helping to develop and maintain metrics on our capacity vendors

• Project managing new capacity installs with various teams including sourcing and field engineering

• Updating the network and associated datastores for capacity additions and decommissions

• Work with various teams to provide feedback, document, and implement various new network designs

• Developing in Python, Ansible for network configuration automation

• Work with our connectivity partners and customer engagement teams for any customer troubleshooting issues

• Help with BGP peering relationship management and peering network design

• Backbone router migrations/grooms/decoms

• Network design life cycles including documentation and collaborative approvals

• Maintaining Network Data SoTs

Required Experience and Competencies

• Minimum 7 years in production network environments, or comparable experience

• Proven project management skills

• Experience working with telecommunications vendors

• Experience with Cisco and Juniper carrier-class routers (ex: ASR9K, CRS, MX960, PTX, MX2K)

• Experience with Cisco Nexus-based switches

• Knowledge of routing protocols such as BGP and IS-IS

• Fundamental understanding of WDM technologies

• Strong Python coding skills

• Good understanding of Unix/Linux-based operating systems

• Experience developing and maintaining network automation tools (e.g. Ansible)

• Experience with Git, or other version control systems

• The ability to self-manage multiple projects at one time

• A good understanding of the current state of AI, machine learning, LLMs, MCP, etc.

• A related technical degree required.

Preferred Experience:

• Experience managing co-located infrastructure

• Experience with DWDM platforms, preferably Ciena and Cisco DCI

• Experience with MACSec encryption

• Extensive network troubleshooting and network monitoring skills

• Hands-on experience with production hardware life-cycle management

• Experience with Puppet, Terraform, Containers, and/or K8S

• Familiarity with CI/CD principles

• Previous experience with lift and shift backbone router migrations

• Experience administering global, web-scale IP Address allocations

• Solid understanding of the transit, public peering and SFI spaces

• Experience writing prompts against public AI chatbots (ex. ChatGPT, Gemini)

• Experience with AI-assisted coding (ex. Cursor, VSCode with AI plugins)

• Prior experience with the Salesforce core application, either in a developer or support role

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you'll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do your best. Together, we'll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future - but to redefine what's possible - for yourself, for AI, and the world.

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Posting Statement

Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that's inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications - without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education.

In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Salesforce will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions.The typical base salary range for this position is $184,000 - $253,000 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $200,800 - $276,100 annually.The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.