Principal Network Engineer

Your Impact at LILA

Lila's science factories run on a fast-growing, multi-site network that spans corporate offices, autonomous labs, and OT/robotics environments across Cambridge (Alewife), OCP, San Francisco, and London. As Principal Network Engineer, you will be the senior technical owner of that network: building the in-house engineering capability to design, secure, and scale it, while increasing the value and effectiveness of our managed service provider relationships.

You'll partner closely with Identity, Endpoints, Security, and OT/Controls engineering teams as we build the corporate engineering function. You’ll have real influence over the network architecture decisions that determine how quickly and safely we can bring new labs and AI Science Factories online.

This is a hands-on, senior IC role for someone who can set technical direction, operate deeply in the details, and shape the network engineering function as it matures.

What You'll Be Building

• Own the architecture, design, and roadmap for Lila’s global network, including SD-WAN/SASE, enterprise firewalls, and secure remote access.
• Lead VLAN, subnet, and segmentation design across corporate IT, lab, and OT environments.
• Design IT/OT convergence patterns that keep production labs safe, segmented, observable, and reliable.
• Drive network infrastructure migration and hardening, including firewall-to-SASE cutovers and maintenance windows.
• Build network visibility, monitoring, and telemetry to detect issues before they affect scientists or lab operations.
• Establish scalable standards for DNS, IP addressing, and naming conventions across labs, buildings, and geographies.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex network incidents, and create runbooks that help the broader IT team self-serve.
• Manage network-focused MSPs and vendors while insourcing the highest-value engineering work over time.
• Mentor other network engineers and represent network engineering in planning for lab buildouts and facility expansions.
• Advise leadership on network architecture tradeoffs across security, cost, reliability, and delivery speed.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• Typically 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 while improving technical outcomes and accountability.
• Strong troubleshooting skills and comfort serving as the senior escalation point for production-impacting network issues.
• Excellent communication skills, including translating network architecture decisions for technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Bonus Points For

• 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, as they intersect with network and remote access design.
• 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.