alkira

Principal Engineer - Networking (Packet Forwarding)

San Jose, California · Principal

Sponsorship not specified$175k-$250kDetected 7 days ago

PythonGoCybersecurityVPNSD-WANZero Trust

About the role

At the core is a stateful, flow- and session-based engine that tracks every connection and applies routing, translation, and policy as packets pass through.
You'll stay hands-on in the code, help shape where the datapath goes next, and take point on the hardest production issues.
the fast path that forwards customer traffic at line rate, the encryption that protects it, and the address translation and tunneling that connect customer networks across clouds.

Design and build the most demanding parts of the C fastpath (VPP/DPDK) yourself
Build and evolve the core of the datapath: the stateful flow and session engine, including connection tracking, NAT, policers, and per-packet, per-tenant policy.
Own how customer networks connect securely across clouds, through IPsec and overlay tunnels like VXLAN, GRE, and GENEVE.
Work with and lead other engineers to deliver datapath features and keep them stable once they ship.
Take part in design and architecture reviews, work through the hard trade-offs, and mentor the engineers around you.
Drive root-cause analysis on the hardest production issues at the packet and kernel level, partnering with the Routing, Backend, and Escalations teams.
Use AI tools like Claude Code to build tooling, write tests, and debug faster.
Design and build the most demanding parts of the C fastpath (VPP/DPDK) yourself; this is a hands-on role.
building them in C, delivering them with the team, and keeping them healthy in production.

Years in the data plane, with a track record of owning and delivering complex, high-performance forwarding work.
A track record of leading delivery: working with and leading engineers to ship and stabilize features, and staying calm and methodical when things break.
Experience with AI development tools like Claude Code.

cloud-like consumption, private-network performance, and total control across the enterprise.

The salary range for this position is $175,000 -$250,000 USD.
Your actual base salary and level will be determined on a case by case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge, skills, experience, education and location.

Own several of the datapath's most critical features end to end, from design through delivery to their long-term health in production.
the team provides round-the-clock coverage across the US and India for production datapath issues.

one programmable platform to connect, secure, and operate every cloud, site, partner, data center, and AI workload.
Founded by Amir and Atif Khan, the creators of Viptela and pioneers of the SD-WAN market, Alkira was built to radically simplify how enterprises deploy and manage network infrastructure.
Today, as part of Lumen, we are bringing that cloud-native operating model to a global network foundation trusted by the world's largest enterprises.
Our platform helps customers move faster without managing hardware, stitching together providers, or operating fragmented cloud networks.
Teams can build and scale connectivity on demand, apply consistent security and segmentation, and gain visibility across distributed environments from one place.
Advise Solution Architects and customers on network design so their deployments hold up in production.

This listing is sourced directly from alkira's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.