Principal Architect, Technology - Transport
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AI Summary
This is a remote position.
Position Title: Principal Architect, Technology - Transport
Base Salary: $155,000 to $230,000 annually DOE
Bonus: Target annual bonus
Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401k, flexible spending account, paid sick leave and paid time off, parental leave, quarterly performance bonus, training, career growth and education reimbursement programs.
Ziply Fiber is a local internet service provider dedicated to elevating the connected lives of the communities we serve. We offer the fastest home internet in the nation, a refreshingly great customer experience, and affordable plans that put customers in charge.
As our state-of-the-art fiber network expands, so does our need for team members who can help us grow and realize our goals.
Our Company Values:
- Genuinely Caring: We treat customers and colleagues like neighbors, with empathy and full attention.
- Empowering You: We help customers choose what is best for them, and we support employees in implementing new ideas and solutions.
- Innovation and Improvement: We constantly seek ways to improve how we serve customers and each other.
- Earning Your Trust: We build trust through clear, honest, human communication.
Job Summary
Ziply Fiber's competitive advantage is fiber — and fiber starts with transport. The Principal Architect for Transport is the technical authority for Ziply's physical layer backbone: the dark fiber routes, long-haul rings, DWDM infrastructure, and data center interconnects that carry every bit we deliver. You will define transport topology, drive capacity planning, architect the infrastructure that enables Ziply's expansion into adjacent and edge-out markets and own the co-location strategy that positions us at the right interconnection points across the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
This is a hands-on senior independent contributor role for a transport architect who thinks in fiber strands, route diversity, and wavelength economics — and who has the project management discipline to take a transport program from route survey through cutover.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
The Essential Duties and Responsibilities listed below are a range of duties performed by the employee and not intended to reflect all duties performed.
Dark Fiber & Long-Haul Architecture
● Design and own Ziply's long-haul and regional dark fiber route architecture: ring topology, route diversity, redundancy standards, and failure domain analysis.
● Define fiber route acquisition strategy: IRU evaluation criteria, route survey requirements, and technical due diligence for new fiber agreements.
● Maintain authoritative transport network documentation: route inventories, fiber maps, strand assignments, splice records, and capacity databases.
● Own OTDR testing standards, fiber acceptance criteria, and ongoing plant performance monitoring.
DWDM & Optical Layer
● Architect DWDM and coherent optical infrastructure: platform selection (Ciena, Infinera, Nokia, or equivalent), ROADM degree planning, and wavelength engineering for long-haul and metro rings.
● Define optical capacity planning: traffic forecasting, wavelength utilization thresholds, fiber exhaust modeling, and upgrade trigger criteria.
● Own OTN/FlexGrid transport architecture: framing standards, multiplexing hierarchy, and protection switching (OLP, OSNCP, or equivalent).
● Evaluate open line system and disaggregated optical architectures (OpenROADM, OpenConfig optical) for cost and operational fit.
Data Center Interconnect & Co-location
● Architect data center interconnect (DCI) strategy: wavelength engineering, low-latency path design, and capacity scaling between Ziply facilities and third-party co-location sites.
● Define co-location strategy: meet-me room presence, cross-connect standards, and third-party peering and transit interconnect infrastructure.
● Manage relationships with co-location providers: SLA governance, capacity planning, and commercial terms aligned to Ziply's network growth roadmap.
Market Expansion & Capacity Planning
● Architect transport infrastructure requirements for adjacent market expansion and edge-out programs: route planning, capacity dimensioning, and build sequencing.
● Own transport capacity planning across the network: traffic matrix modeling, link utilization monitoring, and proactive upgrade planning to stay ahead of demand.
● Partner with Network Planning on transport inputs for new market entry decisions: fiber availability, route cost, and build vs. lease analysis.
● Collaborate with IP Core & Metro architects to ensure transport and IP layer integration is optimized for performance, resilience, and cost efficiency.
Other Duties
· Performs other duties as required to support the business and evolving organization.
Required Qualifications:
· High school diploma or GED.
· Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Telecommunications, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and directly relevant transport architecture experience.
· 10+ years of transport network engineering, optical networking, backbone infrastructure, or carrier transport experience within an ISP, CLEC, fiber network operator, telecommunications provider, regional carrier, or similar network-intensive environment. Demonstrated senior independent contributor experience setting transport architecture standards, influencing technical direction, mentoring engineers, and driving cross-functional architecture decisions without direct people-management responsibility.
· Deep expertise in DWDM/ROADM platforms: Ciena, Infinera, Nokia, or equivalent — architecture, commissioning, and operations of coherent optical systems.
· Strong dark fiber operations background: IRU agreements, fiber route management, OTDR testing, splice documentation, and fiber plant acceptance.
· Experience with transport capacity planning and traffic engineering at regional or national scale: traffic matrix modeling, wavelength utilization, and fiber exhaust forecasting.
· Solid OTN/FlexGrid architecture knowledge: framing, multiplexing, protection schemes, and optical performance monitoring.
· Experience with co-location and DCI strategy: meet-me room operations, cross-connect management, and carrier interconnection.
· Excellent technical documentation skills; able to maintain authoritative route and capacity records and communicate complex topology decisions to non-technical stakeholders.
· Experience creating architecture decision records, reference designs, transport standards, route-diversity frameworks, operational runbooks, capacity planning frameworks, and governance processes for production transport, optical, dark fiber, DCI, or co-location infrastructure.
Preferred Qualifications:
● Experience with open line systems and disaggregated optical networking: OpenROADM, OpenConfig optical, or vendor-neutral DWDM deployments.
● Background in fiber route acquisition: IRU negotiations, route survey, and technical due diligence for new fiber agreements.
● Familiarity with GIS-based network documentation and fiber management systems.
● Experience with transport network automation: NETCONF/YANG, gNMI, or optical controller platforms (Ciena MCP, Nokia NSP, or equivalent).
● Prior experience supporting competitive market expansion or fiber overbuilder programs.
● Experience presenting transport, optical, co-location, route-diversity, capacity, or expansion strategy to VP-level or executive audiences.
● Experience with business continuity planning, facility resiliency, critical infrastructure risk assessment, or physical route-diversity governance for transport networks.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
· Ability to work independently and apply sound judgment and reasoning skills to a variety of situations.
· Ability to multi-task and collaborate effectively with other personnel to meet deadlines.
· Strong verbal and written communication, attention to detail, and organizational skills.
· Ability to work within critical deadlines.
· Ability to adjust to rapidly changing priorities and schedules.
· Ability to provide excellent customer service.
· Senior technical leadership skills with the ability to influence transport architecture, mentor technical teams, establish standards, and build alignment without direct people-management authority.
· Strong analytical and systems-thinking skills with the ability to balance resiliency, scalability, route diversity, optical performance, operational supportability, cost, market expansion, and business continuity risk.
· Executive presence and communication skills to explain complex transport architecture decisions clearly and credibly to Technology, Operations, Finance, Legal, Procurement, Construction, vendors, and senior leadership.
Work Authorization
Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the US for any employer. Sponsorship is not available for this position.
Physical Requirements
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Essential and marginal functions may require maintaining physical condition necessary for bending, stooping, sitting, walking, or standing for prolonged periods of time; most of time is spent sitting in a comfortable position with frequent opportunity to move about. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
Work Environment
Work is performed in an office setting with exposure to computer screens and requires extensive use of a computer, keyboard, mouse, and multi-line telephone system. The work is primarily a modern office setting.
At all times, Ziply Fiber must be your primary employer. Unless otherwise prohibited by law, employees may not hold outside employment nor be self-employed without obtaining approval in writing from Ziply Fiber. In holding outside employment or self-employment, employees should ensure that participation does not conflict with responsibilities to Ziply Fiber or its business interests.
Diverse Workforce / EEO:
Ziply Fiber requires a pre-employment background check as conditions of employment. Ziply Fiber may require a pre-employment drug screening.
Ziply Fiber is a drug free workplace.
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