Position Summary
Our client is seeking a Senior IP/MPLS Solutions Architect to serve as a pre-sales technical leader responsible for designing and positioning packet, routed, and transport networking solutions for utility and telecommunications customers.
Working closely with Account Executives and Sales Engineers, this individual will apply deep IP/MPLS expertise across multi-vendor networking environments, including optical transport, network automation, lifecycle services, and managed services offerings.
This role plays a critical part in winning complex opportunities by translating customer requirements into scalable Layer 2, Layer 3, and optical transport architectures, validating solutions through demonstrations and proof-of-concept activities, and building technical credibility throughout the sales process. The Solutions Architect will engage with both technical and executive stakeholders while helping position professional and managed services as part of comprehensive customer solutions.
Key Responsibilities
- Serve as the senior IP/MPLS technical authority during customer engagements within the utility and telecommunications sectors.
- Partner with sales teams to qualify opportunities, identify technical requirements, and develop winning solution strategies.
- Design IP/MPLS, Segment Routing, EVPN, and Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN architectures integrated with packet-optical and optical transport networks.
- Develop reference architectures covering IP addressing, routing policy, resiliency, service segmentation, QoS, timing and synchronization, and multi-vendor interoperability.
- Translate utility network requirements, including SCADA, teleprotection, substation connectivity, control-center communications, deterministic latency, and cybersecurity considerations, into secure and resilient network designs.
- Support telecommunications service provider requirements involving backbone, metro, data center interconnect, mobile transport, wholesale, and enterprise services.
- Position automation, orchestration, lifecycle management, and managed service capabilities as part of broader customer solutions.
- Deliver technical presentations, demonstrations, whiteboard sessions, workshops, and proof-of-concept activities.
- Serve as a trusted advisor throughout the sales cycle and provide clear design handoffs to implementation and professional services teams.
Primary Duties
- Lead the planning, design, and operational readiness of packet and packet-optical network solutions.
- Collaborate with sales, engineering, and service teams to create profitable and technically sound solutions.
- Validate customer requirements for network hardware, software, services, and functionality.
- Identify technical risks and solution gaps early in the sales cycle.
- Lead customer design workshops and network architecture discussions.
- Participate in customer-facing meetings, including executive briefings and technical reviews.
- Conduct live and remote demonstrations and proof-of-concept activities.
- Support proposal development, solution pricing, bills of materials, statements of work, and RFI/RFP responses.
- Coordinate with engineering, professional services, project management, and product teams regarding solution deployment and lifecycle support.
- Provide project updates and technical guidance to internal stakeholders.
- Interface with technology partners and vendors regarding technical requirements and product capabilities.
- Mentor less-experienced engineers and support ongoing technical enablement efforts.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend improvements to network deployment methodologies.
- Stay current on utility and telecommunications industry trends, standards, regulatory requirements, and cybersecurity developments.
Qualifications & Experience
- Minimum 7 years of experience designing, deploying, or supporting IP/MPLS networks within service provider, utility, or large enterprise WAN environments.
- Previous experience in solutions architecture, pre-sales engineering, consulting, or customer-facing technical roles strongly preferred.
- Experience supporting routing, transport, networking, or related infrastructure solutions in complex customer environments.
Advanced Layer 3 Networking Expertise
- Deep expertise in BGP, OSPF, and IS-IS design and implementation.
- Strong knowledge of route policies, convergence, network scalability, and resiliency.
- Experience with MPLS technologies including LDP, RSVP-TE, L2VPN, L3VPN, VPLS, EVPN, and Segment Routing (SR-MPLS).
- Familiarity with SRv6 architectures.
- Expertise in traffic engineering, QoS, multicast, BFD, fast reroute, mesh and ring protection strategies, and high-availability architectures.
- Understanding of timing and synchronization technologies such as PTP and SyncE.
- Knowledge of Carrier Ethernet services and MPLS-TP.
Optical Networking Knowledge
- Understanding of packet and optical layer integration, including IP over DWDM architectures and coherent optical technologies.
- Familiarity with DWDM and ROADM transport architectures.
- Knowledge of optical design concepts including attenuation, dispersion, OSNR, and link budget analysis.
- Understanding of legacy transport technologies including SONET, SDH, and OTN migration environments.
Utility & Telecommunications Knowledge
- Familiarity with utility communications applications including SCADA, teleprotection, substation networking, and control-center connectivity.
- Understanding of regulatory and cybersecurity requirements affecting utility networks.
- Knowledge of telecommunications provider architectures including backbone, metro, mobile transport, wholesale, and enterprise services.
Automation & Network Management
- Experience with network management, orchestration, and service assurance platforms.
- Familiarity with SNMP, NETCONF/YANG, REST APIs, and streaming telemetry.
- Exposure to automation technologies such as Python and Ansible preferred.
- Understanding of SDN and NFV concepts.
- Experience with network simulation, protocol analysis, traffic generation, and troubleshooting tools.
Professional Skills
- Demonstrated success supporting sales cycles through solution design and technical presentations.
- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and executive audiences.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment.
- Strong problem-solving, documentation, and analytical skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related discipline.
- Advanced routing certifications (CCIE, JNCIE, Nokia SRA, or equivalent).
- Experience supporting electric utilities, public utilities, telecommunications carriers, cable operators, or other critical infrastructure providers.
- Experience in multi-vendor networking environments.
- Strong background developing technical proposals and responding to RFI/RFP requests.
- Experience working with network lifecycle management, automation, and managed service offerings.
Travel: Moderate to extensive travel may be required based on customer and project demands.