Senior Network Engineer

Role Summary :

We are recruiting a top-performing Senior Network Engineer to serve as the technical owner for Zillows on-prem network and employee access infrastructure. This role owns physical and logical on-prem network architecture, corporate LAN/WAN and Wi-Fi, the current Cisco SSL client VPN, and has a meaningful technical stake in the design and deployment of next-generation Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) architectures.

The engineer will work in close partnership with engineers across a range of experience levels as part of a team that collectively owns corporate infrastructure outcomes. This role provides technical leadership through hands-on engineering, collaboration, and influence - such as participating in design reviews, pairing on complex work, and leading incident response - while creating intentional opportunities to mentor and uplift more junior engineers. This mentorship is delivered through day-to-day engineering practices and shared problem-solving, not people management.

This is a senior individual contributor role with significant autonomy, influence, and accountability, but no people management.

Primary Responsibilities :

- Own the architecture, standards, and lifecycle of on-prem network infrastructure across Zillow offices

- Design, operate, and evolve LAN, WAN, and Wi-Fi networks

- Lead equipment refreshes, obsolescence management, and vendor strategy

- Design networking for new office builds, expansions, and relocations

- Own Wi-Fi architecture, performance, and user experience

- Own the Cisco SSL client VPN platform, including reliability, security, and user experience

- Ensure secure and dependable employee remote access

- Partner with endpoint, identity, and security teams on the design and rollout of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

- Help guide architectural decisions during the transition from VPN-centric access to Zero Trust models

- Serve as senior escalation for complex incidents and outages

- Develop and maintain documentation, standards, diagrams, and runbooks

- Mentor and uplift junior engineers through technical leadership and collaboration

- Make pragmatic, cost-conscious decisions that balance reliability, security, and sustainability.

We're Looking for Someone Who :

- Is a builder and owner, not just an operator

- Takes pride in stable, well-run, and well-documented environments

- Thinks holistically about employee experience

- Communicates clearly and calmly, especially during incidents

- Leads through influence and technical credibility

- Values mentoring and developing more junior engineers

- Balances security, reliability, and cost with sound judgment

- Seeks to understand business context and user needs

Non-Negotiable Skills :

- Deep experience designing and operating enterprise on-prem networks

- Strong expertise with Juniper switching, routing, and wireless (EX, QFX, SRX, Mist)

- Strong understanding of physical network infrastructure (MDF/IDF design, cabling, optics, circuits)

- LAN/WAN fundamentals: TCP/IP, VLANs, BGP, OSPF, VRFs

- Enterprise Wi-Fi architecture and troubleshooting

- Experience operating enterprise remote access solutions (e.g., SSL VPN)

- Solid grounding in network security and identity-aware access concepts

- Network monitoring, incident response, and root-cause analysis

- Strong written and verbal communication skills

Skills We're Willing to Be Flexible On :

- Prior hands-on implementation of specific ZTNA products

- Cloud/AWS networking (owned by a separate team)

- Container or microservices networking

- Heavy automation experience (nice-to-have, not required)

Skills

Network Component, Network Architecture, Network Support, WLAN, WiFi, Cisco, Wireless Operations, Network Infrastructure, Routing & Switching, Juniper, Troubleshooting