Senior Network Engineer

Job Description:

Rakuten International is a division of Rakuten Group, Inc., a Japanese global technology leader in services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 4,000 employees worldwide, the Rakuten International business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community.

Job Summary:

Rakuten is seeking a seasoned Senior Network Engineer to lead the design, deployment, and lifecycle management of our global cloud infrastructure. This role combines deep technical expertise with operational leadership, driving automation, connectivity, and resilience across data centers and public cloud platforms. You'll be instrumental in shaping next-generation network services, mentoring engineers, and collaborating across teams and vendors to elevate infrastructure capabilities.

Key Responsibilities:

Be an integral part of the team that:

• Leads the build and operation of cloud infrastructure systems, platforms, and networks
• Participates in release management, patching, upgrades, and version control across hybrid environments
• Implements infrastructure automation for networking stacks
• Drives CI/CD practices using Jenkins, Git workflows, and infrastructure-as-code principles
• Spearheads infrastructure refreshes and build-outs across data centers and public clouds
• Designs and deploys next-gen cloud networking and connectivity solutions for scale and performance
• Executes and manages strategic initiatives with support from senior staff and cross-functional leads
• Ensures alignment with business goals, timelines, and compliance standards
• Leads incident reviews and operational support efforts in partnership with vendors and partners
• Ensures best practices for monitoring, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement
• Mentors junior engineers and peers
• Required: Participates in 24x7 on-call rotation of 1 week on-call shifts

• Experience in configuring and troubleshooting complex on-prem network environments (routers, switches, load-balancers, and firewalls)
• Good understanding of IP routing protocols (BGP, OSPF with both IPv4 and IPv6), switching, MPLS (L2/L3 VPN), VRFs, NAT, ACLs, VLANs, MLAG/LAG, SNMP
• Solid understanding of datacenter networking technologies (VXLAN EVPN)
• Experience with the following platforms: Cisco Nexus, Juniper MX, Arista, Dell
• Solid understanding of 1G/10G/40G/100G physical cabling/transceiver standards: fiber optic types/sizes/capabilities, transceiver types/option
• Proven experience with automation and CI/CD tools (Jenkins, Git) and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible)
• Strong understanding of hybrid cloud architectures (multi-cloud federation) and connectivity models (SD-WAN, cloud gateway)
• Excellent communicator with experience translating technical insights for executive audiences
• Familiarity with provider/facilities coordination and multi-region infrastructure operations
• Experience leading projects and mentoring technical teams

• Bachelor's degree in computer science; or equivalent experience
• 7+ years in network infrastructure engineering, with cloud and data center experience