Backbone Engineer Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is seeking a Core Routing/IP Backbone Engineer to join its Scientific Networking Division and support Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the DOE-funded high-performance network connecting national labs, universities, and research institutions worldwide.

As part of the ESnet Network Services Group, you will help design, deploy, operate, and support network infrastructure and peering architectures for ESnet's production and research environments, enabling large-scale scientific collaboration and high-performance data movement.

You'll work closely with engineers, operations teams, research institutions, vendors, and international partners to deliver scalable, resilient networking solutions. The position may be filled at the CSE2 or CSE3 level based on experience and offers opportunities for technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration.

We're here for the same mission, to bring science solutions to the world. Join our team and YOU will play a supporting role in our goal to address global challenges! Have a high level of impact and work for an organization associated with 17 Nobel Prizes!

Why join Berkeley Lab?

We invest in our employees by offering a total rewards package you can count on:

• Exceptional health and retirement benefits, including pension or 401K-style plans

• A culture where you'll belong - we are invested in our teams!

• In addition to accruing vacation and sick time, we also have a Winter Holiday Shutdown every year.

• Parental bonding leave (for both mothers and fathers)

• Pet insurance

What You Will Do at Level 2 (CSE2):

• Design, deploy, and support routing, switching, optical, and transport infrastructure across ESnet's production and research networks.

• Configure and troubleshoot advanced networking technologies including IPv4/IPv6, BGP, IS-IS, MPLS, Segment Routing, RSVP, QoS, and L2/L3 VPNs.

• Support network operations, maintenance, upgrades, incident response, and service restoration.

• Develop automation tools and operational workflows to improve scalability, reliability, and efficiency.

• Collaborate with engineers, scientific stakeholders, vendors, carriers, and partner organizations to deliver and maintain network services.

• Participate in project planning, procurement, testing, deployment, and operational readiness activities.

• Create and maintain technical documentation, procedures, and network standards.

• Contribute to process improvements, troubleshoot moderate-complexity issues, and provide trusted technical guidance to stakeholders.

• Participate in an on-call rotation for business-hours and after-hours operational support.

In Addition to the Above, What You Will Do at Level 3 (CSE3):

• Operate with strong technical ownership and independence across infrastructure and operational initiatives.

• Lead projects, resolve complex technical issues, and contribute to network architecture and service design.

• Mentor junior engineers and drive operational improvements through automation, process optimization, and cross-team collaboration.

We are looking for at Level 2 (CSE2):

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 3 years and a Master's degree; or equivalent work experience.

• Minimum of five years of relevant experience designing, deploying, operating, and troubleshooting network infrastructure and services.

• Demonstrated experience working with enterprise, service provider, research, or large-scale WAN/LAN environments.

• Demonstrated knowledge and hands-on experience with IP networking technologies and carrier-grade services including MPLS, QoS, traffic engineering, Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN technologies, and related service provider architectures.

• Experience configuring, troubleshooting, and operating advanced routing protocols and technologies, preferably including BGP, IS-IS, OSPF, Segment Routing, IPv4/IPv6, and MPLS within large-scale WAN, backbone, or service provider networking environments.

• Strong understanding of network troubleshooting methodologies with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex routing, transport, and end-to-end service issues across distributed wide-area infrastructures.

• Experience administering and operating multi-vendor routing platforms, preferably Juniper and Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent), in production backbone or carrier-class environments.

• Experience working in UNIX/Linux command-line environments, including remote systems administration, scripting fundamentals, and network automation workflows.

• Experience contributing to technical projects involving backbone deployments, network service implementations, migration planning, testing, operational readiness, and production support.

• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills with the ability to manage operational and engineering issues of moderate to high complexity in large-scale network environments.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across engineering teams, operations groups, vendors, carriers, and scientific stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a highly collaborative, cross-functional technical environment supporting mission-critical network infrastructure.

• Experience using collaboration, ticketing, documentation, monitoring, and operational support tools within network engineering or service provider operations environments.