Lead Network Design Engineer (L3/3.5)
Design
Hyderabad, Telangana, India
About the Role
We are seeking a skilled and experienced Senior Network Design & L3/L3.5 Engineer to act as a technical authority across our global network infrastructure. This role combines architecture, design, engineering, automation and advanced operational support responsibility for enterprise networking, cloud connectivity, security services and application delivery platforms.
The successful candidate will operate at the highest levels of technical escalation, leading the design, governance and optimisation of routing, switching, firewalling, load balancing and cloud networking technologies. They will also be expected to drive the adoption of AI and automation to improve network visibility, operational efficiency, proactive capacity management and incident resolution.
This role is suited to an engineer who enjoys both strategic design work and deep technical troubleshooting, and who can influence standards, mentor engineers and modernise network operations through automation and intelligent tooling.
Key Responsibilities
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Network Architecture & Design
Design and govern enterprise network architectures across datacentres, public cloud and corporate environments.
Define standards, patterns and roadmaps for routing, switching, firewall, DNS and load balancing technologies.
Lead network design reviews, technical governance and architectural decision-making.
Design highly available and resilient network solutions supporting business-critical applications and customer-facing platforms.
Develop network standards covering segmentation, availability, performance and security.
L3 / L3.5 Engineering & Technical Leadership
Act as a senior escalation point for complex network incidents and major service outages.
Perform deep root-cause analysis across LAN, WAN, cloud and security platforms.
Provide technical leadership during major incidents and high-risk infrastructure changes.
Lead troubleshooting activities across routing, switching, firewall, DNS and application delivery environments.
Mentor network engineers and support technical capability development across the team.
Cloud & Hybrid Connectivity
Design and support network architectures within AWS, and some work in Azure environments.
Build and maintain secure hybrid connectivity between cloud platforms, datacentres and customer environments.
Design and support:
AWS VPCs
Transit Gateways
Route Tables
Direct Connect
Site-to-Site VPNs
Security Groups
Network ACLs
Support Azure networking including:
Virtual Networks
ExpressRoute
VPN Gateways
NSGs
Virtual WAN
Security Engineering
Design, implement and maintain network security controls.
Govern firewall policies and segmentation strategies.
Support security initiatives including Zero Trust, segmentation and hybrid-cloud security architectures.
Partner with Security Operations teams to ensure secure and compliant networking services.
AI & Automation Responsibilities
A key objective of this role is driving the next generation of intelligent network operations.
The engineer will:
Design and build AI-driven operational solutions.
Develop automation frameworks for network discovery, inventory management and topology mapping.
Use AI and machine learning techniques to improve:
Incident triage
Fault identification
Capacity forecasting
Configuration validation
Performance optimisation
Change impact assessment
Build automated network documentation and topology generation capabilities.
Develop predictive capacity and utilisation reporting.
Implement Infrastructure and Network as Code principles.
Leverage APIs, Python, Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell and AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code and similar engineering platforms.
Essential skills & experience:
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Routing & Switching
Cisco Catalyst switching platforms.
Cisco Nexus 9000 series.
Advanced knowledge of:
OSPF
BGP
EIGRP
MPLS
VXLAN
STP
HSRP/VRRP
Multicast
QoS
Data Centre network design.
Firewalls & Security
Cisco ASA.
Cisco Firepower.
Fortinet FortiGate firewalls.
Firewall policy management.
VPN technologies.
Site-to-site and remote access VPN design.
Network segmentation and Zero Trust principles.
Load Balancing & Application Delivery
F5 BIG-IP.
LTM.
GTM/DNS.
WAF.
SSL offload.
Application delivery optimisation.
Traffic management.
Monitoring & Visibility
SolarWinds.
Network monitoring and observability platforms.
Capacity management and forecasting.
Network performance analysis.
NetFlow and telemetry solutions.
DNS & Domain Management
BIND.
Microsoft Active Directory DNS.
AWS Route53.
Public and private DNS architectures.
Domain management and registrar governance.
DNS security and resilience.
SolarWinds IPAM
Cloud
Strong AWS networking experience.
Experience integrating datacentre and cloud environments.
Understanding of Azure networking services would be an advantage.
Desirable experience:
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Nutanix AHV, networking & Flow micro-segmentation.
VMware vSphere environments.
SD-WAN technologies.
SASE / ZTNA solutions.
Infrastructure as Code.
AI Ops platforms.
Cloud-native network security products.
CCNP Enterprise.
CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure and/or Security.
AWS Advanced Networking Specialty.
AWS Solutions Architect Professional.
ITIL Foundation.
Fortinet NSE / FCSS certifications.
F5 Certified Technology Specialist (F5-CTS) or equivalent.
Azure Network Engineer Associate.
Qualifications & Certifications
Preferred
Desirable
Key Attributes
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Strong design and systems-thinking mindset.
Able to challenge existing approaches and drive continuous improvement.
Passionate about automation and operational excellence.
Comfortable influencing technical strategy and governance.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Able to lead technical discussions with engineers, vendors and senior stakeholders.
Analytical, data-driven and outcome focused.
Success Measures
Reduction in recurring network incidents.
Increased automation and reduced manual operational effort.
Improved network visibility and documentation accuracy.
Improved capacity forecasting and performance reporting.
Reduced mean time to identify and resolve incidents.
Successful delivery of cloud and infrastructure transformation programmes.
Establishment of AI-assisted operational capabilities across the network estate.