Principal Network Engineer (Transport Engineering)

A Day in Your Life at MKS:

As a Principal Network Engineer at MKS Inc, you will serve as a global technical leader for transport engineering, circuit architecture, carrier connectivity, and transport standards across the enterprise. In this role, you will define and govern standards for circuit ordering, carrier diversity, path redundancy, WAN resilience, acceptance testing, and ongoing validation to ensure reliable, scalable, and operationally resilient network connectivity across global operations. You will report to the Senior Manager, Network Engineering.

You Will Make an Impact By:

- Leading global transport engineering strategy, standards, and architecture for enterprise WAN, internet, cloud, and inter-site connectivity
- Owning standards for circuit ordering, carrier selection, bandwidth sizing, service types, demarcation requirements, and handoff expectations
- Defining and enforcing carrier diversity, last-mile diversity, POP diversity, path diversity, and redundancy requirements for critical sites and services
- Developing transport testing standards, including circuit acceptance testing, failover validation, redundancy testing, performance baselining, and recurring resiliency checks
- Providing technical oversight for circuit lifecycle management from business requirements and design through ordering, implementation, turn-up, documentation, support, and decommissioning
- Partnering with carriers, managed service providers, sourcing, facilities, security, cloud, and infrastructure teams to deliver reliable global connectivity solutions
- Driving standardization of transport documentation, topology diagrams, circuit inventories, escalation paths, and operational handoff requirements
- Serving as a senior escalation point for complex transport, carrier, routing, latency, packet loss, diversity, and resiliency issues
- Travel Requirements: Up to 10% of travel may be required to support critical site deployments, carrier turn-ups, and transport resiliency reviews

Skills You Bring:

- Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Telecommunications, or equivalent practical experience
- 8+ years of progressive experience in transport engineering, telecommunications, carrier connectivity, WAN services, or circuit lifecycle management
- Deep experience with circuit technologies such as DIA, MPLS, Ethernet, broadband, wavelength services, cross-connects, cloud on-ramps, and private connectivity
- Strong understanding of carrier ordering processes, service delivery milestones, LOA/CFA workflows, demarcation coordination, circuit acceptance, and provider escalation models
- Expertise in designing resilient transport solutions using diverse carriers, diverse physical paths, redundant access models, and validated failover requirements
- Experience developing engineering standards, implementation templates, test plans, acceptance criteria, operational runbooks, and lifecycle management processes
- Advanced troubleshooting skills for transport-layer issues including latency, jitter, packet loss, asymmetric routing, MTU, carrier handoff, and failover behavior
- Working knowledge of WAN routing concepts, carrier handoffs, redundancy models, QoS considerations, and enterprise connectivity design as they relate to transport services
- Ability to influence technical direction, mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and drive alignment across global infrastructure and operations teams
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate technical transport requirements into business risk, resiliency, and cost considerations

Preferred Skills: (Optional)

- Experience with global transport transformation, carrier migrations, circuit refresh programs, SD-WAN underlay readiness, and WAN service modernization initiatives
- Experience supporting transport requirements for cloud connectivity solutions such as AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, private cloud interconnects, and internet egress design
- Experience managing global carriers, telecom vendors, managed network providers, and escalation processes for critical circuit and transport issues
- Familiarity with circuit inventory management, cost optimization, contract lifecycle awareness, decommission tracking, and telecom expense management processes
- Experience with monitoring and performance tools used to validate circuit availability, utilization, latency, jitter, packet loss, route stability, and failover performance
- Relevant certifications or training in telecommunications, carrier Ethernet, MEF, cloud connectivity, WAN services, or equivalent transport engineering disciplines

Supervisory Scope: (Optional)

- Reporting Relationships: Individual contributor role with no direct reports; expected to provide technical leadership, mentorship, and architectural guidance across engineering and operations teams
- Financial Responsibilities: Provides technical input into circuit ordering, carrier selection, cost optimization, lifecycle planning, and budgetary recommendations for transport services

Physical Demands and Working Conditions:

- Perform activities such as sitting, standing, or typing for extended periods of time
- Experience maintaining and supporting network infrastructure in a 24/7, On-Call model
- Must be able to communicate information and ideas so others will understand
- Must be able to exchange accurate information
- Operates in a professional office environment
- Constantly operates a computer and other office productivity machinery

In addition to the above responsibilities, the following are considered material job duties of the position:

- Ability to take and follow directions and instructions.
- Ability to interact with other employees, customers, suppliers, vendors, or the public, in a safe, professional, and respectful manner.
- Access to sensitive and confidential business systems and software, personally identifying information, the company’s financial information, and/or the ability to maintain physical security and safety.
- Because this position involves the above material job duties, trustworthiness, reliability, and good judgment also are material job duties.

MKS will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act and the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers.

MKS is an equal opportunity employer, including disability, veteran status and all categories protected by law. Please review our EOE statements for additional details. MKS is generally only hiring candidates who reside in states where we are registered to do business.

Compensation and Benefits:

Salary Pay Range : $120,000.00 - 170,000.00 per year. This range is a good faith estimate of the expected salary range for this position, based on a wide range of factors including qualifications, experience and training, operational and business needs and other considerations permitted by law.

Bonus : This position is eligible for a discretionary annual bonus, in an amount to be determined by MKS [or as applicable].

Benefits : MKS offers a comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental and vision), 401(k) with company match, life and disability insurance, 12 paid holidays, sick time, 15 paid vacation days, [6 weeks fully paid] parental leave, adoption assistance and tuition reimbursement [and for participation in any stock programs, signing bonus, etc.

Globally, our policy is to recruit individuals from wide and diverse backgrounds. However, certain positions require access to controlled goods and technologies subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Applicants for these positions may need to be “U.S. persons.” “U.S. persons” are generally defined as U.S. citizens, noncitizen nationals, lawful permanent residents (or, green card holders), individuals granted asylum, and individuals admitted as refugees.

MKS Inc. and its affiliates and subsidiaries (“MKS”) is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer: diverse candidates are encouraged to apply. We win as a team and are committed to recruiting and hiring qualified applicants regardless of race, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), religion, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability or handicap, marital status, membership in the uniformed services, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, or any other category protected by applicable law. Hiring decisions are based on merit, qualifications and business needs. We conduct background checks and drug screens, in accordance with applicable law and company policies.   MKS is generally only hiring candidates who reside in states where we are registered to do business.

MKS is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process due to a disability, please contact us at:  [email protected]   .

If applying for a specific job, please include the requisition number (ex: RXXXX), the title and location of the role