Blizzard Entertainment is seeking talented network engineers, and we know we’re not alone in our search. So why Blizzard? Because it’s a haven for our kind! Our unique blend of opportunity, environment, and people all help make Blizzard the studio worthy of your career. You’ll be joining a network operations team that attacks challenges and crafts solutions with the same enthusiasm and creativity as our players do in our games. We love keeping up with latest technology, and take pride in protecting and gatekeeping some of the world’s most popular and beloved gaming franchises. And just like the company as a whole, our team is built on a culture of passion for who we are, what we create, and who we support.

We want to hear from skilled network engineers ready and eager to continue this adventure with us. If you like what you read below, send us your data!

What is Network Operations (BONS)?

Blizzard online network systems is the global network operations team responsible for supporting ALL of Blizzard’s customer-facing IT systems and services. Such services include Battle.net, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm. In addition to managing these IT platforms, BONS also works closely with our development teams throughout a product’s lifecycle. Our team’s mission statement: Innovating and delivering global technology solutions to power the most epic entertainment experience... Ever.

Responsibilities

Improve and Implement

You will look for opportunities to improve efficiency within the network, look for deficiencies in existing implementations, and propose solutions.

Support our senior admins and engineers in the integration of complex deployments to support a global network environment. Whether day to day optimizations or analysis of complex problems, you’ll be the glue that keeps the environment running.

Troubleshoot and Support

Resolve critical environmental outages and develop improvements and solutions to prevent such problems from reoccurring.

Work directly with vendors and peering partners in making sure the series of tubes connecting Blizzard’s services and customers are able to successfully handle enormous amounts of material.

Manage network configuration branches, provide network documentation and diagrams, and maintain network device hardware and software deployments within the environment. As with most IT groups, you will share off-hours duties for global on-call coverage on a rotational basis.

Security and Stability

As the core backbone of operations, you will identify security weaknesses and propose solutions that hold stability and security in the forefront.

As a stalwart defender of the network, you will be principally responsible for managing stateful firewall rules and ACLs, assisting with network security audits, device patching, and educating peers and internal customers on security practices and principles.

Lead and Grow

As a core member of our admin team, you will provide training sessions on complex subjects or newly evolving technologies to peers and internal customers, including upper management.

You will actively engage with peers to provide consultation and recommendations, as well as develop documentation on new or old technologies and how it relates to internal systems.

You will have opportunity to learn and grow in your career; working with a plethora of network protocols and technologies.

Requirements

Time in the field

This position requires a minimum of 5 years’ experience supporting a network operations group which focuses on service stability, security, and customer satisfaction

The Technicalities

Strong understanding of networking from conceptual design to physical implementation is a must, as is in-depth knowledge of the TCP / IP stack, layers of the OSI Model, network topologies, and routing protocols

Solid TCP connectivity debugging experience is part of the job, which frequently means getting dirty with packet captures or helping track down protocol bugs in embedded network operating systems

Network OS and Protocols

Cisco IOS and the CLI should be second nature to you. You must have demonstrative experience with VLANs, STP, EtherChannel bonding and load-balancing algorithms, IPv4 Subnetting, and should know the differences between NAT and PAT (and when to use them)

In-depth knowledge of fundamental Internet standards encompassing DHCP, PXE, DNS, SMTP, SNMP, HTTP and many other services that stretch between the inter-tubes should hold a permanent slot in your array of wisdom and experience

Thrive in our environment

Our environment never stays the same. The perfect candidate should exhibit a high attention to detail, adjust quickly to an ever-changing and evolving environment, and poses sharp analytical competency for all-things-technology! We like to travel while doing IT stuff; therefore occasional domestic, and / or international travel is required.

A strong candidate will also bring to the table some of the following:

• 5-Year work experience with Datacenter Network Engineering.
• 3-Year Experience with Cisco switches and routers such as Nexus Series and ASR9K.
• Experience with networking protocols such as VxLAN, OSPF, EIGRP and BGP
• Experience with load balancing technologies for example HAProxy, NGINX or Hardware based LBs like A10, F5 Experience with advanced network diagnostic tools, tcpdump and Wireshark
• Familiar with basic scripting skills by Python or Shell.
• Experience with IDC network project design and implementation
• Experience with production network operation and support.
• Experience with network cabling, fiber optics, and enterprise data center environments.
• Network certifications such as CCIE,HCIE etc.

Plus

• Basic Linux knowledge.
• Cloud computing.
• Fluent Chinese and English communication
• Interested in gaming