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Principal Network Engineer Jobs in Boston, MA (NOW HIRING)

Partner with security and compliance to manage secrets, network policy, and access controls ... engineering experience, with demonstrated Staff, Principal, or Architect-level scope, such as ...

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA · On-site

$152K - $228K/yr

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work across application code and infrastructure to ... Experience working with cloud infrastructure, including compute, storage, networking, and IAM ...

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA · On-site

$152K - $228K/yr

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will work across application code and infrastructure to ... Experience working with cloud infrastructure, including compute, storage, networking, and IAM ...

Software Principal Engineer

Hopkinton, MA · On-site

$148K - $198K/yr

Software Principal Engineer, Software Engineering The Software Engineering team delivers next ... Networking. The Developer Experience organization within ISG is responsible for developer ...

... team network and knowledge. They will drive the optimization of design for supplier ... The Principal Sourcing Engineer will champion other upstream activities, such as Bill of Material ...

Software Principal Engineer

Hopkinton, MA

$148K - $198K/yr

Software Principal Engineer, Software Engineering The Software Engineering team delivers next ... Networking. The Developer Experience organization within ISG is responsible for developer ...

Principal Software Engineer

Boston, MA · On-site

$146K - $196K/yr

They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join their Engineering team, responsible for ... networking, and IAM fundamentals. • Hands-on experience with message queues and pub/sub systems ...

Electrical Systems Principal Engineer

Hopkinton, MA · On-site

$152K - $186K/yr

Electrical Systems Principal Engineer The reputation of Dell Technologies for delivering award ... We design and develop analogue as well as digital hardware products - not just computer or network ...

Electrical Systems Principal Engineer

Hopkinton, MA · On-site

$152K - $186K/yr

Electrical Systems Principal Engineer The reputation of Dell Technologies for delivering award ... We design and develop analogue as well as digital hardware products - not just computer or network ...

Principal Mechanical Engineer

Waltham, MA · On-site

$155K - $193K/yr

Boston Dynamics is looking for a Principal Mechanical Engineer to join our Atlas team. We are ... partner network for actuator products. We are interested in every qualified candidate who is ...

Showing results 21-40

Principal Network Engineer information

See Boston, MA salary details

$22.8K

$144.7K

$222.2K

How much do principal network engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 2, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal network engineer in Boston, MA is $144,748.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $127,100.00 and $171,600.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is a principal network engineer?

Principal Network Engineers are senior-level professionals responsible for designing, implementing, and managing complex network infrastructures within an organization. They lead network architecture initiatives, oversee security protocols, and ensure high availability and performance of network systems. In addition, they often mentor junior engineers, set technical standards, and collaborate with other IT teams to align network solutions with business goals. Their expertise is crucial for maintaining reliable and scalable connectivity in large enterprises.

What does a principal network engineer do?

As a principal network engineer, you are responsible for the daily operations of a computer system. Your responsibilities are to install, organize, and support systems for an organization. The systems you work with often aid a company in its communications, as with local area networks and wide area networks. Other duties include the installation of hardware, regular system maintenance, and optimization of network performance. You might also train individuals in the use of relevant software or hardware. In some cases, you might help with email and data storage.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a principal network engineer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Principal Network Engineer, you need deep expertise in network architecture, routing and switching, security protocols, and typically a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field. Familiarity with enterprise networking hardware, software-defined networking (SDN), firewalls, and certifications such as CCNP or CCIE are essential. Outstanding problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills help you manage complex projects and guide technical teams. These competencies are critical to ensuring reliable, secure, and scalable network infrastructures that support organizational goals.

What are the main challenges principal network engineers face when leading large-scale network projects?

Principal Network Engineers often encounter challenges such as coordinating cross-functional teams, designing scalable solutions that align with business goals, and managing the integration of emerging technologies into existing infrastructure. Balancing competing priorities—like security, performance, and budget constraints—while ensuring minimal downtime is a common part of the role. Effective communication and leadership skills are essential, as Principal Network Engineers frequently serve as the technical authority and must guide both junior engineers and stakeholders through complex decisions.

What is the difference between Principal Network Engineer vs Network Architect?

AspectPrincipal Network EngineerNetwork Architect
CredentialsBS in Computer Science or related, Cisco/Juniper certificationsBS in Computer Science or related, Cisco/Juniper certifications
Work EnvironmentDesign, implement, and troubleshoot network solutions within organizationsDesign overall network infrastructure and architecture for organizations
Employer & Industry UsageUsed across industries for senior technical rolesUsed in enterprise and large organizations for planning network systems
Common Search & ComparisonOften compared for senior technical expertiseCompared for strategic network planning roles

The main difference is that a Principal Network Engineer focuses on implementing and troubleshooting network solutions, while a Network Architect designs the overall network architecture and strategy. Both roles require similar certifications and work in similar environments, but their core responsibilities differ in scope and focus.

How much does a principal network engineer make in the US?

A principal network engineer in the US typically earns between $120,000 and $180,000 annually, with salaries varying based on experience, location, and industry. They often hold advanced certifications like CCNP or CCIE and have extensive knowledge of network architecture, security, and troubleshooting tools.

What are popular job titles related to Principal Network Engineer jobs in Boston, MA?

For Principal Network Engineer jobs in Boston, MA, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What job categories do people searching Principal Network Engineer jobs in Boston, MA look for?

The top searched job categories for Principal Network Engineer jobs in Boston, MA are:

What cities near Boston, MA are hiring for Principal Network Engineer jobs?

Cities near Boston, MA with the most Principal Network Engineer job openings:

Infographic showing various Principal Network Engineer job openings in Boston, MA as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 81% Full Time, 12% Part Time, and 6% Contract. Highlights an 93% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 5% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $144,748 per year, or $69.6 per hour.

Principal Platform Engineer

RxSense

Boston, MA

Full-time

Posted 28 days ago


Job description

We are a healthcare technology company that provides platforms and solutions to improve the management and access of cost-effective pharmacy benefits. Our technology helps enterprise and partnership clients simplify their businesses and helps consumers save on prescriptions.

As a leader in SaaS technology for healthcare, we offer innovative solutions with integrated intelligence on a single enterprise platform that connects the pharmacy ecosystem.  With our expertise and modern, modular platform, our partners use real-time data to transform their business performance and optimize their innovative models in the marketplace.

Position Summary

The Principal Platform Engineer owns the core engineering platform that every product team at RxSense builds on. As a direct report to the VP, Infrastructure Engineering, this role is accountable for the cloud infrastructure, CI/CD systems, developer tooling, and reliability practices that determine how confidently and how fast RxSense engineering can ship. This is a hands-on-keyboard, architect-level role, partnering with software engineers, AI engineers, security, and finance to build a platform that teams choose to build on rather than one they are required to use.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and operate the core cloud infrastructure that supports RxSense engineering, including compute, networking, identity and access management, and container orchestration on AWS.
  • Own the CI/CD platform used across engineering teams, including build pipelines, artifact management, environment promotion, progressive rollout, and rollback.
  • Build and maintain the observability stack across the organization, including logging, metrics, distributed tracing, alerting, and the SLIs and SLOs that define reliable service.
  • Drive infrastructure as code practices across the organization and manage the Kubernetes clusters, custom controllers, and operators that back production workloads.
  • Partner with security and compliance to manage secrets, network policy, and access controls appropriate to a regulated healthcare and pharmacy benefits environment.
  • Design self-service developer tooling and platform APIs and set the abstractions that let product and AI engineering teams' provision, deploy, and operate services without handholding.
  • Own incident response tooling, on-call practices, and reliability engineering standards, and lead or support major incident response across the platform.
  • Partner with engineering leadership and finance on infrastructure cost visibility, capacity planning, and cost optimization.
  • Write documentation, runbooks, and clear interfaces so the platform is adoptable by other engineering teams without handholding.
  • Participate in code review and promote collaboration and best practices, including simplicity, automation, sound design patterns, test coverage, and reusability.
  • Work normal day business hours in the Eastern US time zone

Education, Experience, and Competencies

  • BS (or higher, e.g., MS or Ph.D.) in Computer Science or a related technical field involving coding, or equivalent technical experience.
  • 8+ years of platform, infrastructure, or site reliability engineering experience, with demonstrated Staff, Principal, or Architect-level scope, such as owning platform architecture end to end or being accountable for critical production systems. We evaluate candidates on the scope and impact of their work rather than years of experience alone.
  • Deep, hands-on experience designing and operating CI/CD pipelines for high-velocity engineering organizations, including artifact management, environment promotion, and progressive rollout.
  • Strong AWS background, comfortable down to the IAM, networking, and container orchestration layers, including production Kubernetes experience.
  • Experience with GitHub and GitHub actions.
  • Proven track record building internal developer platforms or tools that other engineering teams adopted by choice, not by mandate.
  • Hands-on coding fluency in Python, Go, or TypeScript. This is a keyboard role, not an architecture-only role.
  • Comfortable operating in a polyglot environment. The RxSense engineering stack spans Python, .NET, and TypeScript, and you will support services across all three.
  • Practical experience with infrastructure as code (such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi) and modern observability tooling (such as Prometheus, New Relic, Grafana, Datadog, or Open Telemetry).
  • Comfortable owning the cost and reliability conversation with both engineering leadership and finance partners.
  • Strong written communication and a bias toward documentation, runbooks, and clear interfaces.
  • Proven analytical thinking and problem-solving skills.
  • Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.

Bonus Qualifications

  • Experience supporting infrastructure for AI or LLM-powered workloads, including GPU provisioning, model serving, or agent runtime infrastructure.
  • Background in healthcare, PBM, pharmacy, or another regulated data environment.
  • Kubernetes operator experience or comfort building custom controllers.
  • FinOps experience, particularly attributing infrastructure spend to features, teams, or business units.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems tooling such as Kafka, gRPC, or Dragonfly and Redis.
  • Experience with Agile development methodologies, preferably both Scrum and Kanban.
  • Experience with code scanning, security, and quality checks as part of the CICD.

Salary Range: $190,000 - $225,000

RxSense believes that a diverse workforce is a more talented and productive workforce. As such, we are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. Our recruitment process is free from discriminatory hiring practices and all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, age, or national origin.  Neither will qualified applicants be discriminated against on the basis of disability or protected veteran status.  We believe in the strength of the collaboration, creativity and sense of community a diverse workforce brings.