below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
52%
of similar roles. Most pay
$131,887–$202,561
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$163k
versus about
$167k
for comparable roles.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About Leidos
Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations.
Leidos currently has
377 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$92,300–$166,850
across 316 roles with salary data.
The Principal Network Engineer - Routing & Switching serves as the senior technical authority for the routed and switched enterprise. This role involves advancing network innovation by executing strategic designs that improve security, scalability, resiliency, and performance. You will own the enterprise architecture for core, distribution, access, WAN edge, and data center interconnects. Daily responsibilities include defining standards for BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, and static routing, as well as managing Layer 2 high-availability, VLANs, and QoS policies. You will lead modernization efforts like IPv4/IPv6 transitions and SDN adoption. Required expertise includes TCP/IP, MPLS, and technologies such as Cisco, Aruba, Palo Alto, Dell, Infoblox, and Brocade. You must provide technical direction to other engineers while resolving complex problems across diverse network domains.
What does a Network Engineer earn?
Median $145000 from 130 postings across 35 companies.
Own the enterprise routing and switching architecture for core, distribution, access, WAN edge, and data center interconnects.
Define routing policy standards for BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, and static routing, including addressing strategy and path selection.
Establish Layer 2 and high-availability architectures including VLAN, spanning-tree, VRF, and QoS policy designs.
Drive strategic engineering projects from concept through implementation, including requirements analysis, risk assessment, and cutover planning.
Lead network modernization efforts such as segmentation, IPv4/IPv6 transition, automation, and software-defined networking adoption.
Serve as the final technical escalation point for complex routing, switching, transport, and performance problems.
Provide technical direction, mentoring, and design reviews for network engineers, administrators, and analysts.
Develop and maintain engineering documentation including logical designs, configuration standards, and migration runbooks.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's degree with 12+ years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree with 10+ years of experience.
Expert-level hands-on experience designing, engineering, and troubleshooting enterprise routing and switching infrastructure in large, complex environments.
Deep knowledge of TCP/IP, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, VLANs, spanning tree, link aggregation, VRFs, MPLS, multicast, QoS, NAT, and high-availability design.
Experience evaluating enterprise network architectures and developing improvement plans across LAN, WAN, WLAN, routing, switching, firewalls, VPN, proxies, SDN, and cloud-connected environments.
Experience leading network engineering projects from planning through implementation, including requirements analysis, dependency management, risk reduction, and operational transition.
Experience serving as a senior technical lead directing the work of other network engineers, administrators, or analysts.
Hands-on experience with two or more of the following: Cisco, Aruba, Palo Alto, Dell, Infoblox, and Brocade.
Current IAT Level II or higher certification, such as Security+ or CISSP.
Active DoD Secret clearance.
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Enterprise, CCIE, or equivalent certification (preferred).
Experience with SD-WAN, SD-Access, Cisco Catalyst Center, or similar controller-based network architectures (preferred).
Experience with network automation and infrastructure-as-code using Python, Ansible, REST APIs, or similar (preferred).
Experience integrating enterprise networking with cloud infrastructure, including hybrid connectivity and secure interconnects (preferred).
Experience with Jira, Confluence, or other project and knowledge-management tools (preferred).
Understanding of Federal Government security requirements such as NIST, FedRAMP, FISMA, RMF, and DoD cybersecurity requirements (preferred).
Network Engineering
LAN
CAN
WAN
Telecommunications
Firewall
Load Balancing
Traffic Shaping
VoIP
GRE
IPSec
IP Encryption
MoIP
NAT
ISO 9000
DoD 8570.01-M
SIGINT
Cryptographic Key Management