Capacity Planning Engineer

Description

The Capacity Planning Engineer is responsible for the strategic planning, forecasting, monitoring, and optimization of FiberLight’s transport, IP/MPLS, Ethernet, optical, and backbone network infrastructure. This role ensures sufficient network capacity is available to support customer growth while maximizing the utilization of existing assets, minimizing service delivery delays, and supporting the company’s long-term network expansion strategy.

As part of the Strategic Engineering team, the Capacity Planning Engineer develops and maintains the tools, dashboards, engineering standards, and forecasting models used to monitor network utilization, identify capacity constraints, and proactively initiate augmentation projects before customer demand or network performance is impacted.

This position serves as the subject matter expert for network capacity management across FiberLight’s MPLS backbone, Layer 2 Ethernet services, optical transport infrastructure, DWDM spectrum utilization, fiber route availability, and infrastructure expansion planning. Success in this role enables predictable service delivery, informed capital planning, improved network efficiency, and scalable growth across the organization.

Essential Job Functions

Network Capacity Planning

• Develop and maintain long-term capacity strategies for FiberLight’s national and regional network infrastructure.
• Monitor utilization across IP/MPLS, Ethernet, optical transport, DWDM, and backbone network environments.
• Forecast network growth using historical utilization trends, customer demand, sales projections, and strategic business initiatives.
• Identify potential capacity constraints and recommend infrastructure augmentations before service delivery or network performance is impacted.
• Maintain short-term and long-term capacity forecasts ranging from 30 days to 36 months.

MPLS & Ethernet Network Capacity Management

• Monitor and analyze utilization across all MPLS backbone links and core network infrastructure.
• Track Layer 2 Ethernet service consumption and available switching capacity.
• Develop and maintain capacity models that support customer growth while preserving network performance and reliability.
• Establish and manage oversubscription policies for customer-facing services.
• Define utilization thresholds and engineering triggers requiring capacity review or augmentation.

Optical Transport & Spectrum Management

• Monitor wavelength utilization across FiberLight’s optical transport platforms.
• Maintain visibility into available optical spectrum across all transport routes.
• Track channel assignments, wavelength availability, amplifier loading, route diversity, and overall transport capacity.
• Identify risks related to spectrum exhaustion and recommend capacity upgrades, route optimization, or network redesigns.
• Develop standards and policies governing wavelength allocation and spectrum utilization.

Capacity Monitoring, Reporting & Automation

• Design and develop dashboards that provide actionable visibility into network utilization and capacity trends.
• Create and maintain automated reporting for:

1. Backbone utilization
2. Optical spectrum availability
3. Port utilization
4. Circuit consumption
5. Fiber pair utilization
6. Transport capacity
7. Equipment capacity
8. Growth and demand trends

• Partner with Business Intelligence and IT teams to automate reporting, forecasting, and capacity analytics.
• Develop predictive tools and models that identify future network constraints before they affect customer orders or operational performance.

Engineering Standards & Governance

• Develop and maintain engineering standards, policies, and procedures related to:
• Capacity planning methodologies
• Oversubscription ratios
• Backbone utilization thresholds
• Optical spectrum management
• Capacity augmentation triggers
• Demand forecasting
• Equipment lifecycle planning
• Strategic customer capacity reservations
• Establish engineering review processes that support consistent capacity planning and decision-making.
• Maintain comprehensive documentation supporting capacity planning processes, forecasting models, and engineering methodologies.

Network Augmentation Planning

• Identify and prioritize backbone expansion requirements and capacity upgrade opportunities.
• Recommend router, switch, optical transport, fiber, and infrastructure augmentations to support future growth.
• Develop business cases and technical justifications supporting capital investment decisions.
• Coordinate augmentation projects with Engineering, Construction, Procurement, Operations, and Finance teams.
• Ensure augmentation initiatives align with business objectives, customer demand, and network performance goals.

Strategic Engineering & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Management to assess infrastructure requirements for new service offerings.
• Support Sales Engineering by validating network capacity for strategic customer opportunities.
• Participate in network architecture planning and long-term infrastructure initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies that improve scalability, efficiency, automation, and network performance.
• Support mergers, acquisitions, and network integration efforts through capacity assessments and planning activities.

Operational Excellence

• Reduce emergency capacity augmentations through proactive forecasting and planning.
• Improve installation success rates by ensuring adequate network resources are available before customer orders enter implementation.
• Monitor and analyze capacity-related service impacts and identify root causes.
• Develop and maintain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure network utilization, growth, performance, and overall network health.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on planning methodologies, reporting capabilities, operational processes, and engineering efficiency.
• Ideal Candidate Profile

Requirements

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
• 8+ years of experience in telecommunications engineering, transport engineering, IP engineering, network planning, or strategic engineering.
• Strong understanding of:

1. MPLS networking
2. Layer 2 Ethernet services
3. DWDM optical transport
4. ROADM architectures
5. Optical spectrum management
6. Carrier Ethernet
7. Fiber infrastructure
8. Backbone engineering

• Experience with network capacity planning methodologies.
• Experience forecasting network growth and developing augmentation strategies.
• Strong understanding of oversubscription models and utilization planning.
• Ability to analyze large datasets and identify utilization trends.
• Experience developing engineering dashboards and reporting tools.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Fujitsu 1Finity optical transport platforms.
• Experience with Juniper routing and switching platforms.
• Familiarity with NetBrain, Netcracker, GIS systems, SolarWinds, or other network management platforms.
• Experience with Python, Power BI, SQL, or other automation and reporting tools.
• Knowledge of hyperscale networking and high-capacity transport architectures.
• CCNP, JNCIP, MEF, or equivalent industry certifications preferred.