Principal Engineer - Network

As a global leader in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike protects the people, processes and technologies that drive modern organizations. Since 2011, our mission hasn’t changed — we’re here to stop breaches, and we’ve redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced AI-native platform. We work on large scale distributed systems, processing almost 3 trillion events per day and this traffic is growing daily. Our customers span all industries, and they count on CrowdStrike to keep their businesses running, their communities safe and their lives moving forward. We're proud to work for a mission-driven company leveraging AI to transform the way we work. CrowdStrikers drive their careers through flexibility and autonomy while also being expected to contribute to a culture of responsible AI adoption, experimentation, and innovation. We use an AI-first mindset as a force multiplier to proactively and continuously accelerate execution, build expertise, uncover insights, and solve complex problems. We’re always looking to add talented CrowdStrikers to the team who have limitless passion, a relentless focus on innovation and a fanatical commitment to our customers, our community and each other. Ready to join a mission that matters? The future of cybersecurity starts with you.

About the Role:
You will own the IP and optical architecture for CrowdStrike's global backbone, including connectivity to traditional and neocloud providers. You'll set the multi-year roadmap governing its evolution, including traffic engineering strategy, capacity planning, and demand forecasting for the network as a whole. You'll drive the initiatives that matter most to the business, from funding case through implementation and long-term operational stewardship, and act as the senior escalation resource in the 24x7 on-call rotation when an incident exceeds the depth of the engineers already on it.

What You'll Do:

You'll own platform selection for routing and optical hardware, working directly with vendor engineering teams to influence their roadmaps, and engage director- and VP-level stakeholders across datacenter, application, and business teams to keep network strategy ahead of the company's growth. You'll set the direction for network automation and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD, GitOps), and for telemetry and analytics strategy, increasingly including frontier and open-weight AI models for tasks like telemetry analysis and automated triage, with sensitive backbone data kept in-house. Part of the role is raising the technical bar of the organization: reviewing senior engineers' designs, setting the standards they build against, and mentoring them toward this level.

What You'll Need:

• US Citizenship or Green Card holder status
• 12+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale backbone networks, with ownership of architecture at global scale
• Deep expertise in IP/MPLS core technologies: IS-IS, MP-BGP, segment
• routing (SR-MPLS/SRv6), PE/P architectures, MPLS-TE, VRFs, DDoS mitigation, CDN
• Deep expertise in optical transport: DWDM, coherent optics (400G/800G), ROADM architectures, amplifier design (EDFA/Raman), dispersion management, alien wavelengths
• Strong grounding in cloud networking: direct connectivity, multi-cloud routing, and hybrid cloud at scale across major hyperscalers (AWS, GCP, OCI, Azure) and neoclouds (e.g., CoreWeave, Cerebras)
• Working depth in adjacent infrastructure domains (virtualization, containers, databases, message queuing, large-scale provisioning) sufficient to architect across boundaries
• Proven ability to set, not just execute, network automation and IaC strategy
• Familiarity with applying frontier and open-weight AI models to network operations (e.g., telemetry analysis, automated triage, ChatOps tooling), including self-hosting open-weight models where data sensitivity requires it
• Experience operating or architecting networks within FedRAMP-authorized environments
• Track record of selecting, testing, and deploying networking hardware and software organization-wide, across major vendors (Juniper, Infinera, Nokia, Arista, Cisco, etc.)
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Proven experience utilizing AI technologies to enhance decision-making, streamline workflows and processes, improve efficiency and drive business outcomes.

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Benefits of Working at CrowdStrike:

• Market leader in compensation and equity awards

• Comprehensive physical and mental wellness programs 

• Competitive vacation and holidays for recharge  

• Paid parental and adoption leaves

• Professional development opportunities for all employees regardless of level or role

• Employee Networks, geographic neighborhood groups, and volunteer opportunities to build connections

• Vibrant office culture with world class amenities

• Great Place to Work Certified™ across the globe

CrowdStrike is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging where everyone is valued for who they are and empowered to succeed. We support veterans and individuals with disabilities through our affirmative action program.

CrowdStrike is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment. The Company does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy or pregnancy-related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical disability (including HIV and AIDS), mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, membership or activity in a local human rights commission, status with regard to public assistance, or any other characteristic protected by law. We base all employment decisions--including recruitment, selection, training, compensation, benefits, discipline, promotions, transfers, lay-offs, return from lay-off, terminations and social/recreational programs--on valid job requirements.

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Right to Work

CrowdStrike, Inc. is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. Placement within the pay range is dependent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications, job level, supervisory status, and location. The base salary range for this position for all U.S. candidates is $195,000 - $290,000 per year, with eligibility for bonuses, equity grants and a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance, 401k and paid time off.

For detailed information about the U.S. benefits package, please click here.