ACI Engineer

Role & responsibilities Design, deploy, and manage Cisco ACI fabric (Spine-Leaf, APIC, Nexus 9000 series switches). Configure Tenants, VRFs, Bridge Domains, EPGs, Application Profiles, and Contracts within ACI. Plan and execute migration from legacy data center networks to ACI fabric. Implement Multi-Pod, Multi-Site, and Remote Leaf architectures for distributed data centers. Integrate ACI with virtualization (VMware) and orchestration platforms (Kubernetes/OpenStack). Configure L2/L3 connectivity, VXLAN, OSPF, BGP, and route-leaking within the fabric. Integrate firewalls/load balancers (F5, Palo Alto, Check Point) using service graphs/PBR. Monitor fabric health and troubleshoot connectivity, policy, and endpoint issues. Manage firmware upgrades and lifecycle management of APIC/Nexus switches. Maintain network documentation, architecture diagrams, and SOPs. Collaborate with cross-functional teams and provide L3-level escalation support. Preferred candidate profile 11-17 years in data center networking with strong hands-on expertise in Cisco ACI. Strong experience with Cisco Nexus 9000 switches (NX-OS and ACI fabric mode). In-depth knowledge of ACI components: APIC, Spine/Leaf, Tenants, VRFs, EPGs, Contracts. Hands-on experience with Multi-Pod/Multi-Site ACI deployments. Solid understanding of VXLAN, BGP EVPN, OSPF, and routing/switching fundamentals. Experience integrating ACI with VMware and orchestration tools. Experience with service graph/PBR integration for firewalls and load balancers. Strong troubleshooting skills using APIC GUI/CLI and Nexus Dashboard. Experience in data center migration or ACI version upgrade projects.