Backbone Network Engineering Principal

Location: California - San Francisco

To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.

Job Category

Enterprise Technology & Infrastructure

Job Details

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

The Experience

Infrastructure Architecture (IA) owns the design, security, and evolution of Salesforce's first-party data center network. We architect the routing, switching, firewall, and load-balancing infrastructure behind large-scale sites that span several Salesforce business units. We also own the backbone connectivity to the internet and to our public cloud environments (AWS and GCP). As a Principal Network Engineer, you will set technical direction for this network and lead the security posture of our edge. You will also manage the lifecycle of the hardware and designs behind it.

What You'll Actually Be Doing

Define and evolve reference architectures for first-party data center networks. These span routers, switches, firewalls, and load balancers, with lighter touchpoints into compute.

Design network and application delivery architectures for large-scale sites that serve multiple business units across Salesforce.

Own backbone and internet connectivity, plus interconnect between our data centers and public cloud environments (AWS and GCP).

Own infrastructure lifecycle for hardware and designs. For example, you might lead a refresh of an aging top-of-rack switch by evaluating and selecting a suitable newer model, then defining the validated design and transition approach.

Build and maintain network automation and tooling in Ansible and Python, managed in Git repositories. Use AI models in day-to-day design, development, analysis, and documentation work.

Act as a technical authority and escalation point for complex design, capacity, and incident-driven architecture questions.

Lead network security architecture, including security feature design and edge hardening. Partner with Network Operations, Security, Supply Chain/Capacity Planning, and cloud teams to deliver at scale. Mentor engineers and influence cross-org technical strategy through design reviews and architectural documentation.

Drive deployment and tuning of edge protocols and policy, such as mTLS, HTTP/2, and cipher suite changes.

Run software certification and vulnerability and bug management for network platforms, coordinating remediation with vendors and operations teams.

You're Our Person If You Have

10+ years of experience in network engineering or architecture, with a track record at data center or service-provider scale. Software-driven engineering skills: Ansible, Python, and Git-based development workflows. Vendor familiarity with Cisco, F5, Juniper, and Ciena.

Familiarity with liquid cooling and high-density facility considerations (such as direct-to-chip cooling, power and thermal constraints, and rack density) and how they influence network hardware selection, rack layout, and design.

AI fluency: hands-on experience and familiarity with AI models, and the ability to apply them effectively in engineering workflows.

Proven record of leading multi-team, multi-year architecture efforts.

Deep expertise in large-scale data center and WAN/backbone design (BGP, EVPN/VXLAN, L2/L3 fabrics, routing policy). Load balancing and application delivery design experience, particularly with F5 (BIG-IP). This includes certificate management and lifecycle, and how certificates and keys are assigned to virtual servers; SSL/TLS termination and re-encryption design, including client-SSL and server-SSL profiles; SSL and HTTP header handling, such as forwarded client IP and protocol headers; and traffic policy and customization through iRules and related profiles (HTTP, persistence, and others).

Hands-on experience with firewalls and TLS termination at the edge.

Strong security background: vulnerability management, software qualification, and secure protocol configuration. Experience with hardware lifecycle planning, including platform evaluation, refresh, and migration.

Experience with new GPU cluster builds, including topology planning, capacity and scale modeling, and coordination with compute, storage, and facilities teams from design through deployment.

Clear communication with executives and engineers.

Even Better If you have

Vendor familiarity with Cisco, F5, Juniper, and Ciena.

Familiarity with public cloud connectivity (AWS Direct Connect, GCP Interconnect) and hybrid architectures. Knowledge of AI data center network design, including high-bandwidth, low-latency fabrics for GPU clusters (for example InfiniBand or RoCE/Ethernet-based back-end networks) and the front-end/back-end network separation typical of AI workloads.

Familiarity with liquid cooling and high-density facility considerations (such as direct-to-chip cooling, power and thermal constraints, and rack density) and how they influence network hardware selection, rack layout, and design.

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance andbe your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you cando your best. Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future — but to redefine what’s possible — for yourself, for AI, and the world.

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.

Please note that Salesforce uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help our recruiters assess and evaluate candidates’ resumes and qualifications throughout the recruiting process. Humans will always make any candidate selection and hiring decisions. Please see our Candidate Privacy Statement for more information about how we use your personal data and your rights, including with regard to use of AI tools and opt out options.

Posting Statement

Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that’s inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications – without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law.

This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education.

In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program.

More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Salesforce will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions.

The typical base salary range for this position is $197,300 - $313,700 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $237,700 - $344,700 annually.

The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.

Additional Locations: Virginia - Herndon, Virginia - Mclean