Principal Network Engineer

The role

You will be the senior technical owner of a multi-site network spanning corporate offices, autonomous labs, and OT/robotics environments. You will design, secure, and scale the network while building in-house engineering capabilities and managing MSP relationships.

What you will do

• Own the architecture, design, and roadmap for the global network
• Lead VLAN, subnet, and segmentation design across IT, lab, and OT environments
• Design IT/OT convergence patterns
• Drive network infrastructure migration and hardening
• Build network visibility, monitoring, and telemetry
• Establish scalable standards for DNS, IP addressing, and naming conventions
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex network incidents
• Manage network-focused MSPs and vendors
• Mentor other network engineers
• Advise leadership on network architecture tradeoffs

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive network engineering experience, or equivalent depth in designing and operating multi-site networks
• Deep hands-on expertise with SD-WAN/SASE platforms such as Cato Networks or similar
• Strong experience with enterprise firewalls, routing platforms, switching, VLAN segmentation, and subnetting at scale
• Experience securing and connecting both corporate IT and OT, industrial, or lab-instrumentation networks
• Practical experience implementing network segmentation, zero-trust concepts, and secure remote access
• Proven ability to manage MSPs and vendors
• Strong troubleshooting skills
• Excellent communication skills

Nice to have

• Experience in life sciences, biotech, pharma, or advanced manufacturing environments with lab automation or robotics on the network
• Industry certifications such as CCNP/CCIE, JNCIP/JNCIE, or equivalent
• Cloud networking experience with AWS VPC, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect, or similar
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code for network configuration, such as Terraform, Ansible, or similar
• Familiarity with identity and access patterns, such as SSO/IdP, Keycloak, or similar
• Experience operating in SOC 2 or similarly regulated security environments
• Prior experience building an internal network engineering function that reduced reliance on outside vendors or MSPs

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• Flexible time off with generous company wide holidays
• Paid parental leave
• Educational assistance program
• Commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees
• Company subsidized lunch program

About the company

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science.