Network Engineer Media and Entertainment

Job Title: Network Engineer Media and Entertainment
Location: Culver City, CA (Onsite)
Duration: 6+ Months Contract

Summary:

• Seeking a highly skilled and motivated Media Networking Engineer (Contractor) to join our Content Engineering team. This is a unique opportunity to play a critical role in optimizing network infrastructure to support Apple's growing media and entertainment (M&E) ecosystem. The Media Networking Engineer will be a key technical resource, working closely with media production teams, networking teams, and security experts to architect, advocate for, and implement tailored networking solutions that meet the demanding performance and security requirements of M&E workflows. The ideal candidate will possess a deep understanding of networking principles, media protocols, and security best practices, as well as a passion for enabling creativity and innovation in a fast-paced environment. While not always directly involved in day-to-day support or implementation, this role is critical in ensuring that all aspects of M&E networking are properly addressed and supported. Beyond technical expertise, the ideal candidate will be a highly effective communicator and collaborator, capable of building strong relationships across diverse teams and advocating for the needs of Apple's media organizations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders across Media teams, GNS, and Security, fostering a collaborative and trust-based environment.
• Workflow Analysis & Optimization: Collaborate with media production teams to document their specific network requirements, pain points, and desired outcomes. Translate these requirements into clear and actionable recommendations for Networking team implementation.
• Solution Design & Architecture: Assist in the architectural design of end-to-end networking solutions for M&E workflows, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security. Solutions should be designed to support a variety of media formats and workflows, including baseband video, compressed video, and audio over IP.
• Networking Team Collaboration & Advocacy: Act as a key liaison between Media teams and GNS, building strong working relationships to champion the unique networking requirements of media teams and ensure that their needs are met. This includes effectively communicating documented requirements, proactively resolving conflicts, and fostering a spirit of partnership.
• Solution Implementation & Oversight: Oversee the implementation of network solutions, working with Apple s networking team and other teams as needed. This includes diagnosing and resolving performance issues such as latency, jitter, and packet loss. This may involve some direct, on-site support to diagnose and resolve critical issues.
• Security Compliance & Hardening: Ensure that all network solutions comply with Apple's security policies and best practices. Implement security controls to protect sensitive media assets.
• Troubleshooting & Triage: Provide expert-level troubleshooting and triage for network-related issues affecting media workflows. This may involve some direct, on-site support to diagnose and resolve critical issues.
• Documentation & Training: Develop and maintain clear and concise documentation of network configurations and procedures. Provide training to media teams on best practices for network usage and security.
• Vendor Management: Work with vendors of media-specific hardware and software to ensure compatibility with Apple's network infrastructure.
• Proactive Monitoring & Tuning: Identify opportunities to implement proactive monitoring and alerting systems to identify and resolve network issues before they impact media workflows. Continuously tune network configurations to optimize performance.
• Automation & Orchestration: Identify opportunities to automate network configuration and management tasks to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in network engineering, with a focus on supporting media and entertainment workflows.
• Exceptional communication, interpersonal, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to effectively communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences and build consensus around solutions.
• Proven ability to document complex technical requirements in a clear and concise manner.
• Deep understanding of networking protocols (TCP/IP, UDP, DNS, DHCP, etc.), routing principles (OSPF, BGP), and Layer 2/Layer 3 networking concepts (VLANs, QinQ, MLAG, LACP).
• Experience with network security technologies (firewalls, intrusion detection systems, VPNs), preference for experience with Palo Alto Networks firewalls.
• Strong knowledge of media protocols (SRT, RIST, NDI, Dante, AVB) and SMPTE ST 2110 standards for professional media over IP networks
• Strong understanding of service uptime, redundancy, and failover mechanisms in a broadcast environment.
• Experience with high-performance storage solutions (Qumulo, Isilon, etc.).
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform).
• Experience with Software Defined Networking (SDN) concepts and technologies such as OpenFlow, or similar.
• Experience working with broadcast video equipment, such as routers, switchers, encoders, and decoders.
• Experience with timing and synchronization technologies, including Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
• Proven experience designing, implementing, and troubleshooting both Wide Area Network (WAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) environments.
• Strong understanding of Quality of Service (QoS) principles and implementation techniques.
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Passion for media and entertainment technology.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Cisco CCNA or CCNP certification.
• Experience with network automation tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef).
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform or Pulumi.
• Experience with scripting languages (Python, Perl, etc.).
• Experience with configuration and management of networking equipment from vendors such as Arista, Cisco, and Fortinet.
• Familiarity with cellular and mobile networking technologies, such as LTE, 5G, and mobile device management (MDM) solutions.
• Experience with in-band and out-of-band network management techniques.
• Experience with Virtual Private Clouds (VPC) and Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) technologies.
• Experience with long-haul networking technologies used in broadcast environments (e.g., DWDM, optical transport, high-speed Ethernet).
• Experience with audio networking technologies, such as Dante, AES67, and Ravenna.
• Knowledge of color science and video engineering principles.