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 influencesuch 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)