Common Networks was founded on the idea that everyone should have a choice for fast, affordable access to broadband internet. Right now, most homes in the U.S. don't. In fact, 62% of homes live in a monopoly broadband market. High-speed access unlocks all the superpowers on the internet. When it works, it can be a great leveling force across the world, giving everyone access to educational tools, entertainment, immediate translations, or even medical care that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Common Networks provides suburban neighborhoods with internet using wireless technology. We interconnect homes in a neighborhood, creating a mesh network between homes and our fiber internet sources. A whole community can then have fast and reliable internet service with only a few locations needing fiber access.

Role

As our Network Architect, you will own the backhaul network that allows us to deliver high-speed internet service to our customers. Our live network has two major components: (1) a transit network and (2) an access network. The transit network consists of the points of presence deep in suburban neighborhoods along with our regional data centers. These are fed by our private fiber transit and high capacity wireless links. The access network is the first commercially deployed Wireless Graph Network, a new topology for last mile networks created at Common Networks. 

You will work closely with the engineering, operations and market launch teams to support growth in existing markets and expansion into new areas. You’ll coordinate with the field team for installation, maintenance and servicing of our sites. You’ll work with engineering to develop the tools the company needs to ensure fast and reliable service from the network edge to the home wifi router. Your objective is to ensure that our access network has plenty of highly reliable bandwidth available so our residential customers get the best internet access experience possible.

What you do

• Plan, build and monitor the fiber backbone network and the wireless relay network
• Purchase fiber for our points of presence and work with external vendors to ensure timely delivery
• Hold your own in technical discussions, be a subject matter expert, and have strategic influence
• Define goals, metrics and systems to ensure that the company can meet its goals around growth, reliability and network performance
• Collaborate closely with our Growth, Marketing and New Markets teams to ensure that we’re always ahead of the demand curve for bandwidth in particular geographies
• Collaborate with our Engineering team to ensure all our customers have a fast and reliable path to the internet no matter what happens upstream
• Build a culture of reliability through processes, metrics and tools
• Manage external partners - data centers to vendors to commercial and municipal fiber providers
• Investigate new technologies and technical industry research exploring new technologies, and hardware trends to support next generation products and product roadmaps
• Communicate decisions, risks, and priorities to the entire company

Requirements

• BS with 8+ years of professional experience, including leading a network engineering, platform, sysadmin or devops projects
• Flexibility and interest in digging into a new networking approach. This includes the ability to reason from first principles about network design. This isn’t a typical network engineering role!
• Extensive experience building highly reliable networks and systems 
• Experience with fiber procurement, peering agreements, BGP, network planning and data center builds
• Experience with microwave/mmwave wireless backhaul radios is ideal
• Experience managing external partners for infrastructure buildout
• Deep understanding of OSI Layer 1 - 4.
• Excited to work in a startup environment on a small team; creative, resourceful, comfortable with fast-moving environments
• Data-driven; clear, logical, and thorough in written and verbal communication
• Organized: able to track multiple projects at different stages of completion

Equal Employment Opportunity

Common Networks is committed to being an equal opportunity employer – we evaluate all employees and job applicants equally, based on merit, competence, and qualifications. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.