Principal Optical Network System Engineer

About the role

Collaborate with internal teams, ODMs, and technology partners to ensure successful qualification and production readiness. Develop automated qualification frameworks and methodologies to ensure robust operation in rack-scale and cluster-scale AI environments. Evaluate technology tradeoffs across performance, power, reliability, and scalability.

Develop telemetry, diagnostics, automation, and fleet monitoring solutions that improve network reliability, accelerate issue resolution, and enhance engineering productivity. Drive end-to-end architecture, integration, validation, and deployment of networking infrastructure for AI systems across scale-up and scale-out environments.

Partner with silicon, firmware, software, hardware, and Azure infrastructure teams to define networking requirements and deliver scalable, reliable, and high-performance AI fabrics. Lead bring-up, qualification, and optimization of network subsystems including switches, NICs, PHYs, optics, cables, and high-speed SerDes technologies.

Develop validation and performance methodologies for AI networking infrastructure, ensuring readiness across functionality, scale, reliability, and stress conditions. Drive root-cause analysis, telemetry, and automation solutions to improve network resiliency, operational efficiency, and fleet health.

Evaluate and influence next-generation networking technologies and architectures required to support future AI workloads and hyperscale deployments.

Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 7+ years technical engineering experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience OR equivalent experience.

8+ years of experience with fiber optics, including related tools, devices, processes, design, deployment, operations, or manufacturing. 8+ years of experience designing, testing, validating, or troubleshooting optical interconnects, optical components, or end-to-end fiber links.

These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Networking and AI Infrastructure Experience with data center networking and AI infrastructure, including GPU fabrics, InfiniBand, Ethernet, or UALink ecosystems. Understanding of scale-up and scale-out network architectures and the optical connectivity requirements of large-scale distributed AI systems.

Experience in one or more areas such as high-speed copper or optical interconnects, high-speed optical transmission systems, Co-Packaged Optics (CPO), Near-Packaged Optics (NPO), silicon photonics, pluggable optics, advanced packaging, or rack-scale fiber management. Experience with optical engineering concepts, testing procedures, laboratory tools, analysis methods, or relevant industry standards.

Experience testing or validating active or passive fiber-optic components and end-to-end fiber links. Experience developing high-density fiber infrastructure, including fiber shuffle solutions, patch panels, connectors, cable assemblies, and rack-scale optical systems. Experience with hyperscale datacenter deployment, optical manufacturing processes, and ODM, contract manufacturer, and supplier ecosystems.

Experience managing optical or networking products through EVT, DVT, PVT, qualification, and production ramp. Experience with Linux environments and automation frameworks. Experience developing telemetry, diagnostics, validation, and qualification tooling.