Principle Network Engineer

Overview

Hybrid
$190,000 - $200,000
Contract - W2

Skills

linux
network infrastructure
virtualization
kubernetes
chef

Job Details

Principal Network Engineer

Location: McKinney, TX (Hybrid Onsite Required)

Type: Contract-to-Hire

Eligibility: Must be authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship (No C2C)

About the Role

We are seeking a seasoned Principal Network Engineer for a contract-to-hire opportunity with our client in McKinney, TX. This role is ideal for a deeply experienced engineer someone who never pivoted fully to the cloud but instead doubled down on mastering on-premises, data center networking, preferably within the Telecom or Banking industries.

This position is part of the Cloud Engineering team, but don t be misled this is not a cloud-first role. You'll be designing, implementing, and managing high-performance network infrastructure across multiple physical data centers and hybrid environments, while also applying modern automation and monitoring techniques to maintain stability and scale.

Key Responsibilities

  • Architect and manage complex network environments across on-premises data centers and hybrid setups
  • Evaluate and onboard data centers, ISPs, and networking hardware
  • Configure and monitor network infrastructure, ensuring security, performance, and scalability
  • Automate infrastructure provisioning using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and configuration management tools
  • Optimize hardware usage through strategic capacity planning
  • Implement robust observability stacks (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana) with alerts for proactive troubleshooting
  • Manage secure and consistent deployment environments using centralized secrets management and automated patching.

Required Skills & Experience

<>Technical Competencies</>

  • Expert knowledge of Linux operating system internals and architecture, with a focus on networking stability and performance turning.
  • In-depth understanding of networking layers, protocols, services, and security practices.
  • Familiarity with configuring and troubleshooting network hardware and software, as well as analyzing packet captures.
  • Expertise designing and managing network infrastructure across multiple data centers and public cloud environments.
  • Expertise with virtualization technologies, with a focus on networking stability and performance tuning.
  • Experience in evaluating, qualifying, and managing networking hardware and capacity planning.
  • Expertise with container management (Kubernetes, ECS, Docker, Helm)
  • Expertise with configuration management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet)
  • Expertise with infrastructure as code (Terraform, OpenTofu, Pulumi)
  • Expertise with monitoring and alerting systems (Cloudwatch, Datadog, New Relic, Site24x7, Dynatrace)
  • Experience with VCS systems and providers (Git, Mercurial, Github, Sourcehut)
  • Experience with CI/CD systems (Github Actions, Circle CI, Argo)
  • Experience with ticket management systems (Jira, Shortcut, Azure Devops)

<>Soft Skills</>

  • Coaches peers and leads by influence
  • Balances tactical execution with strategic foresight
  • Writes clear and meaningful documentation
  • Collaborates effectively across departments with empathy and professionalism
  • Makes sound, data-driven decisions and can clearly articulate technical trade-offs
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