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Data Center Controls Network Engineer

OpenAI· Scaling
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Hybrid (San Francisco)$257k - $327kFull-timePosted 11mo ago

About the role

Mid to senior OT Network Engineer focused on designing, validating, and operating resilient, secure, and scalable OT network architectures for high-density AI data centers. Works across controls systems, OT infrastructure, telemetry, commissioning, deployment, and operations with cross-functional partners.

Responsibilities

  • Define controls, automation, and OT network requirements for AI data center campuses.
  • Develop reference architectures, engineering standards, and reusable design templates.
  • Review and develop basis-of-design and functional design documents, including OT network diagrams, IP/VLAN schemes, telemetry architectures, data flow diagrams, and commissioning requirements.
  • Design OT and infrastructure network architectures, including physical topology, logical topology, IP addressing, subnetting, VLANs, routing, switching, redundancy, segmentation, firewall policy coordination, out-of-band management, monitoring, and remote access patterns.
  • Develop day-two network operations requirements, including change management, configuration backups, golden configurations, monitoring thresholds, firmware lifecycle, rollback plans, and post-change validation.
  • Partner with electrical, mechanical, IT/networking, security, and operations teams to ensure OT network systems align with GPU deployments, campus-wide telemetry, and failure-domain isolation requirements.
  • Define integration patterns and protocol requirements across BACnet/IP, BACnet MSTP, Modbus TCP/RTU, OPC UA, IEC-61850 MMS/GOOSE, MQTT, SNMP, syslog, NTP/PTP, IRIG-B, and vendor-specific interfaces.
  • Lead technical evaluation of controls integrators, network equipment suppliers, design consultants, contractors, and commissioning agents.
  • Review network equipment submittals, configurations, firmware assumptions, certifications, test reports, and quality documentation.
  • Support factory witnessed testing (FWT), site acceptance testing, network readiness checks, failover testing, and integrated systems testing.
  • Troubleshoot complex controls network issues including packet loss, latency, duplicate IPs, routing errors, firewall drops, protocol incompatibilities, time synchronization drift, and intermittent device communication failures.

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of relevant experience in controls engineering, industrial automation, OT networking, mission-critical facilities, or similar critical infrastructure environments.
  • Strong expertise in resilient OT network architecture, implementation, troubleshooting, and lifecycle support.
  • Experience with OT/IT boundary design, secure enterprise integration, firewall policy design, redundant topologies, out-of-band management, and monitoring.
  • Hands-on experience with Layer 3 OT network design, including IP addressing, subnetting, routing, VRFs, ACLs, inter-VLAN traffic control, and network segmentation.
  • Hands-on experience with Layer 2 security and switching controls, including MACsec, port security, loop prevention, and switch-level access control.
  • Hands-on experience in designing resilient OT network topologies using industrial redundancy protocols and architectures such as PRP, HSR, Cisco REP, RSTP/MSTP, and ring or star topologies.
  • Hands-on experience in designing resilient infrastructure network architectures using HSRP/VRRP, spine-leaf topologies, redundant uplinks, and failure-domain isolation.
  • Hands-on experience with industrial and infrastructure network equipment such as Cisco switches/routers, Juniper switches/routers, Palo Alto firewalls, Rockwell Automation Stratix switches, Siemens Ruggedcom or comparable industrial networking platforms.
  • Experience with network management and observability platforms such as Cisco Catalyst Center (DNA Center), Palo Alto Panorama, Juniper Mist, industrial NMS tools, packet brokers, and OT monitoring platforms.
  • Hands-on experience with industrial Ethernet, VPN tunneling, IPsec-based connectivity, and secure remote access.
  • Hands-on experience with virtualized OT or controls server environments such as VMware vSAN, Microsoft Azure Stack HCI / Hyper-V, or comparable infrastructure platforms.
  • Experience with industrial communication and OT infrastructure protocols, including BACnet/IP, BACnet MSTP, Modbus TCP/RTU, OPC UA, IEC-61850 MMS/GOOSE, MQTT, SNMP, syslog, NTP/PTP, IRIG-B, and vendor-specific interfaces, and strong understanding of their behavior across OT network architectures.
  • Experience reviewing and producing technical design documentation, commissioning plans, and acceptance test procedures.
  • Experience with factory witnessed testing, site acceptance testing, failover testing, telemetry validation, protocol compatibility testing, and root-cause analysis.
  • Ability to use logs, packet captures, and field observations to make sound technical decisions and communicate risk clearly.
  • Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Network Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline.

Skills

Required:OT network architectureIndustrial networkingProtocol integration (BACnet/IP, BACnet MSTP, Modbus, OPC UA, IEC-61850, MQTT, SNMP, NTP/PTP, IRIG-B)
Last updated Jul 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About OpenAI

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