Lead Network Engineer Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

The Company:

Faraday Future (FFAI) is a California-based mobility company, leveraging the latest technologies and world's best talent to realize exciting new possibilities in mobility. We're producing user-centric, technology-first vehicles to establish new paradigms in human-vehicle interaction. We're not just seeking to change how our cars work - we're seeking to change the way we drive. At FF, we're creating something new, something connected, and something with a true global impact.

Your Role:

As Senior Network Engineer, you will own the design, deployment, and operation of Faraday Future's enterprise and manufacturing network infrastructure across corporate offices, data centers, cloud environments, and the plant/production network. You will lead network architecture for highly available, secure, and scalable connectivity spanning campus LAN/WLAN, WAN/SD-WAN, data center, and multi-cloud (AWS/Azure) environments. Beyond traditional network engineering, you will champion AI-driven network operations (AIOps) - applying automation, machine learning, and AI assistants to monitoring, anomaly detection, capacity planning, and self-healing - to elevate the network from manually operated infrastructure into an intelligent, automated, and predictive platform that supports the company's R&D, manufacturing, and business operations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Network Architecture & Design: Design and implement enterprise, data center, and manufacturing/OT network architectures spanning campus LAN/WLAN, WAN/SD-WAN, routing, switching, and segmentation. Define standards for high availability, redundancy, and scalability across corporate offices, plants, data centers, and cloud. Lead network capacity planning, technology selection, and the long-term network roadmap.
• Network Automation & Infrastructure as Code: Build network automation using Python, Ansible, Terraform, and device APIs (REST/NETCONF) to standardize provisioning, configuration management, and change deployment. Develop CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) workflows for network changes to eliminate manual, error-prone operations. Create event-driven and self-service automation for routine network tasks.
• AI-Driven Network Operations (AIOps): Apply AI/ML and AIOps to network monitoring, anomaly detection, predictive capacity planning, and automated root-cause analysis. Leverage LLM-based copilots and agents to accelerate troubleshooting, generate and review device configurations, parse logs, and automate runbooks. Build closed-loop automation from AI-driven insight to remediation with appropriate guardrails and human-in-the-loop approval.
• Cloud & Hybrid Networking: Design and manage cloud and hybrid-cloud networking across AWS and/or Azure, including VPC/VNet design, transit gateways/peering, VPN/Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, load balancing, and DNS. Ensure secure, high-performance connectivity between on-premises, data center, and cloud workloads, and embed automation and observability into cloud network operations.
• Network Security & Zero Trust: Implement network security controls including next-generation firewalls, NAC, micro-segmentation, VPN, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). Partner with security teams on threat detection, policy enforcement, and compliance. Use AI-assisted tooling for security event correlation, automated response, and continuous posture assessment.
• Reliability, Monitoring & Observability: Deploy and operate the network monitoring and observability stack (streaming telemetry/SNMP, NetFlow, Grafana, ELK, network performance monitoring). Define SLAs/SLOs, alerting, on-call, and incident response. Drive MTTR reduction through automation and AI-augmented analytics, and continuously improve network reliability.
• Data Center & Manufacturing Connectivity: Support data center networking (spine-leaf fabric, EVPN/VXLAN, high throughput), structured cabling standards, and plant/manufacturing connectivity (industrial Ethernet, OT/IT convergence, and wireless coverage). Ensure resilient, high-availability connectivity for production-critical and R&D systems.
• Compute Cluster & Storage Networking: Design and operate high-performance networking for compute/GPU clusters and HPC environments (low-latency, high-bandwidth fabrics, RDMA/RoCE/InfiniBand) and storage networking (SAN/NAS, iSCSI, NVMe-oF, Fibre Channel). Ensure resilient, high-throughput, lossless connectivity between compute clusters, storage arrays, and the data center fabric to support AI/ML training, simulation, and R&D workloads.
• Technical Leadership & Collaboration: As a senior engineer, lead network design reviews and key technical decisions, mentor junior engineers, and set best practices for automation and AI adoption in network operations. Collaborate cross-functionally with IT, security, cloud, and manufacturing teams, manage vendors and carriers, and drive the evolution toward intelligent, automated network operations.

Basic Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Network/Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience: 8+ years of network engineering experience designing and operating enterprise, data center, and/or cloud networks.
• Networking Core: Deep expertise in routing & switching (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, VLAN, STP, VXLAN), LAN/WLAN, WAN/SD-WAN, and load balancing.
• Network Automation: Hands-on automation with Python, Ansible, Terraform, and REST/NETCONF APIs, including Infrastructure-as-Code and version control (Git).
• AI / AIOps: Practical experience applying AI/ML or AIOps tools and LLM-based assistants to network monitoring, troubleshooting, or automation.
• Cloud Networking: Experience with cloud networking on AWS and/or Azure (VPC/VNet, transit/peering, VPN/Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, DNS).
• Network Security: Solid understanding of network security, firewalls, NAC, VPN, segmentation, and Zero Trust principles.
• Security: Hands-on experience with Cisco, Arista, Juniper, Palo Alto, Fortinet, or equivalent network platforms.
• Monitoring & Observability: Experience with network monitoring, telemetry, and observability tooling and proactive alerting.
• Collaboration: Strong troubleshooting, documentation, and cross-functional communication skills.
• Cluster & Storage: Experience with data center compute/GPU clusters and storage networking (SAN/NAS, iSCSI, NVMe-oF, Fibre Channel) and high-performance, low-latency lossless fabrics (RDMA/RoCE/InfiniBand).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications: CCNP / CCIE, AWS/Azure networking, or equivalent industry certifications.
• Network AIOps Platforms: Experience with AI/ML-driven network platforms such as Cisco DNA Center / ThousandEyes, Juniper Mist AI, or similar AIOps tooling.
• SD-WAN / SASE: Experience with SD-WAN and SASE/SSE solutions (Cisco, VMware VeloCloud, Palo Alto Prisma, Zscaler, etc.).
• Manufacturing / OT Networking: Experience with manufacturing, industrial, or OT/IT converged networks.
• Data Center Fabric: Experience with data center fabric, spine-leaf, and EVPN/VXLAN in high-throughput environments.
• Telemetry & Analytics: Experience building network telemetry, observability, and analytics pipelines (streaming telemetry, NetFlow, Grafana, ELK).
• NetDevOps at Scale: Proven track record of leading network automation / NetDevOps transformation at scale.
• AI Tooling & Scripting: Strong scripting/development background and experience integrating AI copilots/agents into IT and network operations.
• HPC / GPU Clusters: Experience supporting HPC / GPU cluster networking for AI/ML training (RoCE/InfiniBand fabrics, GPUDirect) and storage performance tuning (parallel/distributed file systems, NVMe-oF, tiered storage).

Annual Salary Range:

($105,000.00 -$125,000.00 DOE), plus benefits and incentive plans

 Perks + Benefits

• Healthcare + dental + vision benefits (Free for you/discounted for family)
• 401(k) options
• Casual dress code + relaxed work environment
• Culturally diverse, progressive atmosphere

Faraday Future is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.