Role Overview
The Senior Systems Engineer plays a key technical role in shaping customer solutions prior to sale, working hand-in-hand with sales teams to assess enterprise networking requirements and develop tailored infrastructure designs. This position focuses on translating complex business challenges into effective, future-ready network architectures using deep expertise in data center technologies, automation frameworks, and cloud networking platforms.
Key Responsibilities
- Collaborate with sales representatives to analyze customer environments and lead technical discussions on network architecture
- Deliver clear, impactful presentations on networking portfolios, including data center infrastructure, network management, security monitoring, and visibility solutions
- Design and propose scalable data center networks using modern leaf-spine topologies and overlay technologies such as VxLAN and EVPN
- Support proof-of-concept initiatives by configuring and validating systems in real-world test environments
- Develop architectural guidance and best practices tailored to customer use cases
- Assist in responding to formal procurement requests, including RFPs and RFQs
- Share field insights with product and engineering teams to influence future development
- Engage at industry events and customer meetings to demonstrate technical capabilities
- Stay current with competitive offerings and market trends in enterprise networking
- Produce technical content that illustrates practical implementations and addresses common deployment challenges
Required Qualifications
- Technical bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
- Minimum of 7 years of hands-on experience in Layer 2 and Layer 3 network design and deployment, with emphasis on data center environments
- Strong command of routing and switching protocols across major vendor platforms
- Expertise with command-line interface (CLI) tools for network configuration and troubleshooting
- Must be based locally in the Bay Area to support in-person customer engagements
Preferred Qualifications
- Industry-recognized certification such as CCIE or JNCIE
- Background in pre-sales engineering, solutions architecture, or consulting engineering roles
- Experience with network virtualization and overlay technologies
- Advanced knowledge in three or more of the following: Ethernet, VLANs, RSTP/MSTP, IP routing (OSPF, BGP, IS-IS), TCP/IP, VxLAN, EVPN, Multicast, QoS
- Familiarity with software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)
- Hands-on automation experience using Python and Ansible
- Awareness of competitive product landscapes
- Experience authoring technical white papers or design documentation
Technical Environment
Proficiency is expected across data center networking, network automation, cloud-connected architectures, monitoring and visibility tools, security detection systems, packet brokering, and management platforms. The role leverages CLI fluency and automation tools such as Python and Ansible, with deep engagement in protocols including OSPF, BGP, IS-IS, and multicast, as well as modern fabric technologies like VxLAN and EVPN.
Work Location
This is a customer-facing, field-based role requiring residency in the Bay Area to ensure timely and effective engagement with clients and partners.
