Principal Software Engineer, Forwarding Plane
Role Overview
Alkira, a Lumen company, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Forwarding Plane to lead the architecture, design, and evolution of our next-generation cloud networking Forwarding Plane platform.
This is a highly visible technical leadership role responsible for building and scaling the core packet-processing infrastructure that powers Alkira's cloud networking and security services.
You will own critical Forwarding Plane technologies including flow /session management, NAT, policy enforcement, secure cloud connectivity, and traffic optimization.
As a hands-on technical leader, you will drive architectural decisions, develop high-performance networking software, and mentor engineering teams while helping define the future of cloud networking infrastructure.
The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in systems programming, deep knowledge in VPP/DPDK and other kernel bypass technologies, cloud networking, Linux internals, and high-performance packet processing with a passion for solving complex distributed systems challenges.
Key Skills for This Role
Full Job Posting
What You'll Do
- Platform Architecture & Ownership
- Own the architecture, design, implementation, and long-term technical roadmap of Alkira's core Forwarding Plane platform.
- Define scalable and resilient networking architectures supporting enterprise-grade cloud networking and security services.
- Drive technical strategy for Forwarding Plane reliability, scalability, observability, and maintainability.
- Establish engineering standards and best practices across Forwarding Plane development effort
- High-Performance Networking Development
- Design and develop high-performance packet-processing systems and networking services.
- Build and enhance Forwarding Plane components including:
- Flow/Session management
- Network Address Translation (NAT)
- Policy enforcement
- Traffic steering and load balancing
- IPsec and secure tunnel processing
- Cloud connectivity services
- Develop performance-critical software in C for Linux-based environments.
- Optimize packet-processing pipelines for throughput, latency, and resource efficiency.
- Expertise in cloud networking across AWS, Azure, GCP and other cloud service providers
- Performance Engineering
- Drive end-to-end performance optimization across the networking stack.
- Leverage modern packet-processing frameworks such as DPDK and VPP.
- Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies including:
- Hardware acceleration
- Kernel bypass technologies
- Cloud-native networking innovations
- Perform deep performance analysis, profiling, debugging, and tuning of production systems.
- Technical Leadership
- Lead architecture reviews and drive technical decision-making across teams.
- Mentor senior and staff-level engineers on networking and systems design.
- Partner with product management, platform engineering, and security teams to deliver strategic initiatives.
- Influence technology direction and guide the adoption of networking best practices across the organization.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline; Master's degree preferred.
- 12+ years of software engineering experience with significant focus on networking and systems software.
- Expert proficiency in C.
- Deep understanding of Linux operating systems, networking subsystems, and kernel internals.
- Extensive systems programming experience in performance-sensitive environments.
- Strong expertise in TCP/IP networking fundamentals and protocols.
- Hands-on experience developing high-performance Forwarding Plane
- or packet-processing software.
- Deep knowledge of:
- NAT
- Stateful connection tracking
- IPsec
- Routing and forwarding technologies
- Firewall and policy enforcement systems
- Network security concepts
- Experience with DPDK, VPP, or similar high-performance packet-processing frameworks.
- Proven experience analyzing and optimizing software for performance, scalability, and reliability.
- Demonstrated technical leadership and mentoring experience.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience building cloud networking platforms in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Knowledge of SD-WAN, SASE, ZTNA, and cloud security architectures.
- Experience with VPP/DPDK, kernel bypass technologies.
- Advanced Linux networking frameworks.
- Experience contributing to open-source networking projects.
- Strong background in distributed systems and highly available networking services.
- Experience designing and operating multi-tenant cloud networking platforms.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline; Master's degree preferred.
About Alkira
The on-demand platform for connecting, securing, and operating distributed enterprise networks across every cloud, site, partner, and AI workload.
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