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:
• For any help or support, reach out to: [email protected]

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