Full-Time
Senior Lab Administrator
Updated on 8/19/2026
Nexthop.ai
201-500 employees
AI-driven cloud networking hardware and software
No salary listed
Santa Clara, CA, USA
In Person
Bachelor's, Associate's
 Facilities Operations (1) |
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- At least 5 years of experience in lab operations, data center support for on-premise and colocation centers, IT infrastructure, hardware operations, or a related hands-on technical environment; equivalent hands-on experience may also be considered.
- Ability to independently manage lab operations, deployments, or infrastructure projects involving multiple stakeholders.
- Hands-on experience with rack-and-stack activities, hardware installation, power connections, and structured copper and fiber cabling.
- Experience creating or maintaining rack elevations and topology diagrams.
- Experience with fiber optic handling and cable management, including routing, labeling, bend-radius control, and fiber protection.
- Ability to troubleshoot physical readiness, connectivity, cabling, and hardware deployment issues methodically and safely.
- Ability to coordinate work across engineering, IT, logistics, facilities, operations, and external vendors.
- Ability to improve processes, establish repeatable standards, and communicate operational expectations to others.
- Ability to lift and move lab equipment and work in physical infrastructure environments for extended periods as needed.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Own day-to-day operations and operational readiness for assigned onsite and offsite lab or data center spaces.
- Coordinate hardware deployments, lab changes, equipment moves, and bring-up activities with engineering and operations stakeholders.
- Manage the physical infrastructure lifecycle for assigned lab areas, including equipment, cabling, power, connectivity, and environmental readiness.
- Maintain inventory, rack elevations, and operational procedures.
- Identify operational risks and readiness gaps, drive issues to closure, and contribute to planning for upcoming engineering programs.
- Help establish and improve standards for lab safety, organization, access, cabling, inventory control, documentation, and change management.
- Partner with engineering, IT, logistics, facilities, operations, and vendors to deliver reliable lab support and infrastructure services.
- Provide day-to-day guidance and informal mentoring to junior lab administrators and help promote consistent operational practices.
- Understanding of networking principles and technologies, including TCP/IP, VLANs, routing, and switching.
- Experience supporting high-performance computing, networking, optics, silicon, or artificial intelligence infrastructure labs.
- Familiarity with lab automation, asset management, ticketing, monitoring, or infrastructure documentation tools.
- Basic scripting experience with Python, Bash, or similar languages.
- Experience mentoring junior team members or coordinating work across a small operations team.
- Experience supporting maintenance windows, change management, access controls, security requirements, or vendor service visits.
- An associate or bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
Nexthop AI develops networking hardware and software designed for AI-driven cloud infrastructure. Its products combine specialized routers and software that optimize data-center networks for AI workloads, built through close co-development with large cloud operators. The company works by partnering with hyperscalers to tailor and deploy scalable networking solutions, rather than selling generic gear. This approach sets Nexthop AI apart from competitors by focusing on deep, collaborative development with cloud providers and delivering integrated hardware-software systems that fit specific AI cloud needs. The goal is to meet the rising demand for advanced cloud infrastructure by delivering efficient, scalable networking solutions through strategic partnerships and joint development.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Series B
Total Funding
$610M
Headquarters
Santa Clara, California
Founded
2024
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Nexthop AI closed a $500 million Series B at a $4.2 billion valuation on March 10, 2026.
- The March 2026 launch addressed 30% lower cost and power, matching AI datacenter buyer priorities.
- Shipping status and OFC 2026 visibility signal real deployments, not just prototype marketing.
What critics are saying
- Broadcom’s March 2026 Tomahawk 6 and Arista’s June 2026 1.6T platforms squeeze Nexthop’s edge.
- One hyperscaler design loss kills follow-on revenue; its co-development model concentrates demand into few accounts.
- Hardware timing risk stays brutal: missing Broadcom’s silicon cadence in 2026-2027 strands inventory and roadmap.
What makes Nexthop.ai unique
- Nexthop AI co-develops hardware with hyperscalers, including a March 2026 Disaggregated Spine design.
- Nexthop AI backs open networking, ranking top-ten SONiC contributors and selling SONiC or FBOSS systems.
- Nexthop AI shipped 51.2T and 102.4T switches by March 2026 with turnkey Nexthop NOS.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Flexible Work Hours
Remote Work Options
Paid Vacation
PTO/vacation
Hybrid Work Options
Wellness Program
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 4%1 year growth
↑ 4%2 year growth
↓ -1%Nexthop AI raises $500M at $4.2B evaluation, to build the most efficient AI infrastructure
Nexthop AI unveils transformative, industry-leading scale-out and scale-across switches engineered for Hyperscalers & NeoClouds. Nexthop AI Underlines focus on power efficient solutions, deployment velocity and open networking SANTA CLARA, Calif.-BUSINESS WIRE- Nexthop AI, the leading pioneer of highly efficient AI Networking, today launched a range of products for scale-out, scale-across and front-end applications for cloud and AI datacenters. The launch portfolio sets new standards for performance, power efficiency, and deployment speed - very critical metrics in AI infrastructure. Nexthop AI's highly efficient scale-out and scale-across AI networking portfolio Nexthop also unveiled the Disaggregated Spine architecture - a new, highly efficient, scale-across network design developed in collaboration with a large hyperscaler. This innovative architecture decomposes the traditional monolithic chassis running proprietary software into independent, optimized, functional tiers. It features a scale-across leaf tier (data center fabric facing) and scale-across spine tier (data center interconnect facing) offering deep buffers, line-rate MACsec encryption and expanded routing tables. This architecture delivers 30% lower cost and 30% lower power consumption than legacy chassis-based systems and facilitates adoption of open network operating systems such as SONiC. Driving the Future of Open Networking Nexthop AI is an active contributor to the open networking ecosystem, serving as a SONiC Governing Board member of the Linux Foundation. In a very short timeframe, Nexthop has risen to be amongst the top 10 global contributors to the SONiC project. Nexthop empowers customers to run their preferred version of a network operating system like SONiC or FBOSS on its switches. In addition, for the NeoClouds, Nexthop offers a hardened, supported, high-quality distribution of the Nexthop Network Operating System powered by SONiC. "We are delighted to see the tremendous contributions Nexthop has made to the open networking community in such a short time. They are partnering with the community on several new initiatives, including pioneering new concepts like the Disaggregated Spine. Their speed of execution, coupled with their unwavering dedication to customer success, is truly commendable," said Dave Maltz, Principal Network Architect for Azure Networking at Microsoft. Pioneering New Platforms for AI and Cloud Nexthop AI's launch portfolio sets new standards for performance, power efficiency, and deployment speed - very critical metrics in AI infrastructure. These platforms can run any version of SONiC or FBOSS that hyperscalers choose or are also available as a turnkey solution fully integrated with Nexthop NOS for NeoClouds. * NH-4010: The industry's lowest power 51.2 Tbps switch based on Broadcom Tomahawk 5 silicon. Its highly efficient system design is proven to save customers 15-20% power in like-for-like configurations, delivering 10s of Megawatts of total power savings at scale. * NH-4220: The industry's highest density 102.4 Tbps air cooled system based on Broadcom Tomahawk 6 silicon. These switches are specifically engineered to provide seamless migration from previous generations without requiring disruptive changes to rack or fiber plants, enabling rapid deployment of next-generation AI clusters. * NH-5010: The first deep-buffer, scale-across spine switch based on Broadcom Qumran 3D silicon, enabling the Disaggregated Spine architecture for leading Hyperscalers. "We are pleased to collaborate with Nexthop on SONiC and SAI-based architectures to deliver standards-based Ethernet switching solutions for deployments within and across data centers, serving our hyperscale and data center customers. Nexthop's deep system expertise and integration of our low-power switching silicon have enabled scalable, highly power-efficient solutions," said Asad Khamisy, senior vice president and general manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. Nexthop platforms offer advanced real-time telemetry for efficient congestion control, advanced load balancing and real-time layer 1 and optics monitoring - significantly improving overall network performance and link reliability. "Ethernet Switching is a key building block for AI Networking. Led by new AI and scale-across use case expansions, the market is poised to approach $200B over the next decade," said Alan Weckel, founder and technology analyst at 650 Group. "Nexthop AI is taking a unique co-development approach to product development and their initial platforms represent the start of a foundational portfolio that raises the bar to fundamentally address the efficiency, density, and reliability challenges to support 800G and 1.6T deployments." Availability and Additional Resources Nexthop AI's innovative platforms and software solutions are already shipping to leading Hyperscalers. Nexthop platforms also have a complementary optics portfolio with dedicated focus on Layer 1 validation that improves stability and deployment speed for customers. Its team will be at OFC 2026 in Los Angeles, demonstrating some of its AI solutions. To schedule a meeting with Connectweb, reach out to [email protected]. About Nexthop AI Nexthop AI is a cohesive team of seasoned industry experts, who through their collaborative product design as well as system and network engineering capabilities are building innovative networking products and solutions for Hyperscalers and NeoClouds. Nexthop is headquartered in Santa Clara with additional locations in Seattle, Vancouver, Dublin and Bengaluru, India. For more information visit http://nexthop.ai nexthop ai, the nexthop ai logo, and all related product and software names are trademarks of Nexthop Systems Inc. All other trademarks or service marks are the property of their respective owners. Product specifications and information are subject to change without notice. Contact details: Media Contact Arthi Ayyangar [email protected] +1 877 271 6550 * Images - product_stack_with_logo.jpg Nexthop AI's highly efficient scale-out and scale-across AI networking portfolio Download - Nexthop_AI_Logo_color_2x.jpg Download
Nexthop AI has raised $500 million in an oversubscribed Series B round, pushing its valuation to $4.2 billion. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Andreessen Horowitz joining as a major investor, alongside Altimeter and existing backers. The Santa Clara-based company specialises in AI networking solutions for data centres, delivering switching solutions built on open-source operating systems such as SONiC and FBOSS. Founded by CEO Anshul Sadana, Nexthop serves hyperscalers and cloud providers with customised and off-the-shelf networking products. Alongside the funding announcement, Nexthop launched a range of products for cloud and AI data centres, focusing on performance, power efficiency and deployment speed. The company has offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Dublin and Bengaluru.
Nexthop AI has launched a range of switches for cloud and AI datacentres, claiming industry-leading performance and power efficiency. The portfolio includes the NH-4010, a 51.2 Tbps switch that saves 15–20% power compared to similar configurations, and the NH-4220, a 102.4 Tbps air-cooled system based on Broadcom Tomahawk 6 silicon. The company also unveiled its Disaggregated Spine architecture, developed with a large hyperscaler, which delivers 30% lower cost and power consumption than legacy chassis-based systems. Nexthop is a SONiC Governing Board member and ranks amongst the top 10 global contributors to the SONiC project. The platforms are already shipping to leading hyperscalers. Nexthop AI is headquartered in Santa Clara with offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Dublin and Bengaluru.
Nexthop AI, an AI infrastructure company, announced a $110 million Series A round on March 25, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and including Kleiner Perkins, Battery Ventures, and Emergent Ventures.