Engineer (Core Networking)
Southern Nuclear · Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Engineer, Core Networking
Job Summary
The Core Networking Engineer designs, implements, and operates the IP network infrastructure supporting Southern Linc’s mission-critical LTE services and continued 5G SA deployment.
This role focuses on IP routing, BGP, data center networking, and network architecture, including the core data center fabric and connectivity. The engineer owns work across the engineering lifecycle, from design and implementation through troubleshooting, documentation, standards, and lifecycle management.
The ideal candidate brings deep routing expertise, strong troubleshooting skills, and the ability to independently develop solutions for complex network problems. The team also supports firewalls and application delivery infrastructure.
As part of a small engineering team, this role carries broad technical ownership and provides opportunities to influence engineering standards, technical direction, and network architecture.
What You'll Do
Serve as a technical resource for IP routing, BGP, data center networking, and network architecture.
Design and support routing for the LTE and 5G packet cores, internet edge, and data center core.
Own engineering efforts from design and lab validation through implementation, testing, documentation, and operational handoff.
Troubleshoot complex routing, forwarding, convergence, asymmetric path, and application connectivity issues.
Perform packet and protocol level analysis using routing tables, forwarding state, packet captures, logs, and telemetry.
Develop network standards, reusable designs, peer-review practices, and implementation procedures.
Evaluate new technologies through research, lab testing, and proof-of-concept deployments.
Work with vendors on architecture, implementation, technical escalations, and product issues.
Improve reliability and consistency through automation and repeatable engineering practices.
Provide technical leadership through design ownership, collaboration, mentoring, and knowledge sharing.
What We're Looking For
Must Have
Progressive hands on experience designing, implementing, and troubleshooting complex production IP networks.
Deep practical knowledge of BGP, including path selection, routing policy, communities, route filtering and advertisement, redundancy, convergence, and traffic engineering.
Strong networking fundamentals, including VRFs, ECMP, BFD, IPv4, Ethernet, VLANs, TCP/UDP, MTU, and packet forwarding behavior.
- Strong packet level troubleshooting skills, including the ability to analyze traffic flows and protocol exchanges to identify routing, transport, application-connectivity, and network-security issues.
- Experience correlating packet behavior with routing state, forwarding paths, firewall policy, NAT, and expected application flows.
Ability to independently design and implement solutions rather than only execute predefined configurations.
Ability to evaluate designs for resiliency, scalability, operational complexity, and risk.
Strong technical communication, documentation, and collaboration skills.
Ability to work effectively within a small team where engineers have broad technical ownership.
Strongly Preferred
Experience with several of the following is highly desirable:
BGP EVPN and VXLAN
Layer 3 leaf-spine architectures
Advanced BGP routing policy design
Arista EOS
VRF based segmentation
Internet edge or external BGP connectivity
Highly available data center or service provider style architectures
Network automation using Python, Ansible, APIs, or infrastructure-as-code practices
Configuration management, source control, telemetry, or automated network validation
Helpful Experience
Experience in these areas is a plus, but is not required:
- Advanced knowledge of next-generation and application aware firewalls
Firewall routing, NAT, VPNs, segmentation, and stateful inspection
VMware NSX-T
- F5 LTM and WIP
LTE, 5G SA, or mobile packet core networking
- NetScout for network analytics and visibility
Network security and cybersecurity best practices
Prior LTE or telecommunications experience is preferred but not required.
Education and Experience
5+ years of progressive network engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated expertise with complex production networks.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related technical discipline is strongly preferred.
- Professional networking certifications such as CCNP, CCIE, or advanced Arista ACE certifications are a plus.