Network and Data Center Engineer Full-time NEW

Network and Data Center Engineer

The School of Computing seeks a Network and Data Center Engineer to administer and support the School's and departments' network, data center, and computing hardware infrastructure. The engineer will have primary day-to-day responsibility for School-managed network and data center infrastructure and will work closely with University networking, information security, facilities, and other central IT teams on shared services and infrastructure.

The position also supports the network and physical hardware infrastructure for research computing, including HPC, GPU-accelerated computing, and AI/ML research systems. Experience with these environments is strongly desired, although the position is not responsible for HPC operating systems, research software, AI/ML frameworks, or application support.

Responsibilities include:

• Configure, operate, monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot School-managed network infrastructure, including switches, routers, firewalls, VLANs, and network segmentation.
• Diagnose and resolve connectivity, routing, performance, and network security issues, coordinating with University networking and security teams when appropriate.
• Implement network upgrades, configuration changes, capacity improvements, and equipment replacements.
• Participate in the design and planning of network improvements and new infrastructure.
• Work with University networking staff to troubleshoot wireless issues and assess coverage, capacity, and upgrade needs.
• Maintain network diagrams, configurations, addressing information, and related technical documentation.
• Install, cable, maintain, and troubleshoot servers, GPU systems, storage, network equipment, and other data center hardware.
• Support the physical deployment and network integration of HPC, GPU-accelerated, AI/ML, and other specialized research computing systems.
• Support high-bandwidth network connectivity and data movement for research computing and storage environments.
• Diagnose network and hardware problems and collaborate with systems administrators, researchers, University technical staff, and vendors when issues span infrastructure layers.
• Identify rack space, power, cooling, cabling, and network requirements for new equipment and coordinate implementation with appropriate University staff.
• Support hardware lifecycle activities, including deployment, upgrades, troubleshooting, repair, replacement, inventory, and vendor support.
• Maintain network and infrastructure security controls in accordance with University requirements and established practices.
• Support network segmentation, access controls, monitoring, vulnerability remediation, and incident response within the position's areas of responsibility.
• Monitor infrastructure availability, performance, and capacity and address operational issues.
• Maintain technical documentation and operating procedures.
• Participate in infrastructure planning, procurement, and implementation projects.
• Participate in scheduled maintenance and, when necessary, response to critical infrastructure issues outside normal business hours.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, engineering, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
• Professional experience administering, configuring, and troubleshooting production network infrastructure.
• Strong knowledge of TCP/IP, Ethernet, routing, switching, VLANs, DNS, DHCP, and related network technologies.
• Experience configuring and supporting managed switches, routers, firewalls, or comparable network infrastructure.
• Experience supporting physical servers, data center/server room environments, or comparable computing hardware.
• Working knowledge of Linux, MacOS and/or Windows sufficient for infrastructure troubleshooting and collaboration with systems administrators.
• Understanding of network and infrastructure security principles and practices.
• Demonstrated ability to systematically diagnose network and hardware problems and work with other technical teams to resolve complex issues.
• Ability to create and maintain clear technical documentation.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and organizational skills, with the ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a technical team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting network, physical hardware, or data center infrastructure for HPC, GPU-accelerated computing, AI/ML research, or other computationally intensive environments.
• Experience deploying or troubleshooting GPU servers, high-density compute systems, or other specialized computing hardware.
• Experience supporting IT infrastructure in higher education, academic research, or a similarly complex environment.
• Experience administering departmental or organizational networks that operate within a larger enterprise network.
• Experience with UT Austin's enterprise network architecture, platforms, services, management and monitoring tools, and operational practices, or comparable enterprise environments.
• Experience with enterprise network technologies such as Cisco, SONiC, FortiNet or comparable platforms.
• Experience with high-speed networking, data center switching, high-performance storage connectivity, or large-scale data transfer.
• Experience with network/infrastructure monitoring or automation tools and technologies.
• Experience with firewalls, network segmentation, VPNs, network access control, or related security technologies.
• Relevant industry certifications or equivalent demonstrated technical expertise.

Salary Range

$95,000 + depending on qualifications

Working Conditions

This position includes hands-on work in data center and server room environments and may require occasional work outside normal business hours for maintenance, equipment installation, upgrades, or critical service interruptions.

Required Materials

• Resume/CV
• 3 work references with their contact information; at least one reference should be from a supervisor
• Letter of interest