Network Simulation Engineer - Expert

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark, General Catalyst, Peter Thiel, Adam D'Angelo, Larry Summers, and Jack Dorsey.

Position: Network Engineering & Simulation Expert — Hephaestus
Type: Contract
Compensation: $70–$90/hour
Location: Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Design realistic tasks involving routing, switching, network services, segmentation, access policies, redundancy, or performance.
• Build reproducible network topologies and device configurations using tools such as containerlab, GNS3, EVE-NG, Mininet, ns-3, or FRRouting.
• Configure and debug scenarios involving technologies like BGP, OSPF, VLANs, IPv4/IPv6, DNS, DHCP, NAT, VPNs, or firewalls.
• Develop automated checks for reachability, route selection, policy enforcement, isolation, convergence, failover, latency, throughput, and packet loss.
• Produce reference configurations, traffic or failure scenarios, and verification scripts; validate both successful and deliberately incorrect cases.
• Review AI-generated configurations and diagnose failures. Use coding agents to support automation while independently validating network behavior.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5+ years of professional network engineering experience with enterprise, data-center, cloud, or service-provider networks.
• Strong hands-on routing, switching, troubleshooting, and network-policy skills.
• Experience building network labs, simulations, or emulations and analyzing traffic with tools such as Wireshark, tcpdump, or iperf.
• Ability to write and debug Python, shell, Ansible, or comparable automation.
• Sound judgment about protocol behavior, failure modes, and measurement limitations.

Preferred

• Relevant certifications such as CCNP, CCIE, or JNCIP.
• Experience with network test automation.

Compensation & Legal

• Hourly contractor
• Paid weekly via Stripe Connect

Application Process (Takes 20–30 mins to complete)

• Upload resume
• AI interview based on your resume
• Submit form

Resources & Support

• For details about the interview process and platform information, please check: https://talent.docs.mercor.com/welcome
• For any help or support, reach out to: support@mercor.com

PS: Our team reviews applications daily. Please complete your AI interview and application steps to be considered for this opportunity.