About the role
About the Role
SonicWall is seeking a Senior Software Engineer with deep IPv6 expertise to lead the design, implementation, and hardening of IPv6 capabilities across the Sonicwall firewall firmware stack. As a Principal Engineer, you will be the technical authority for IPv6 feature parity, protocol correctness, and interoperability across SonicWall Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) platforms. This role is ideal for engineers with hands-on experience delivering IPv6 in high-performance router, switch, or carrier-grade networking products who are looking to apply that expertise in the embedded network security domain.
Responsibilities
- Lead IPv6 Architecture & Feature Delivery — Own end-to-end design and implementation of IPv6 features across the Sonicwall frewall networking stack, including IPv6 routing, interface addressing, DHCPv6, NDP, MLDv2, and IPv6 Policy-Based Routing (PBR).
- Drive IPv6 Feature Parity — Identify and close gaps between IPv4 and IPv6 feature sets across subsystems — including VPN Tunnel Interfaces, IPsec/IKEv2, SSL-VPN, Syslog, SNMP, and NAT64 — ensuring consistent dual-stack and IPv6-only operation.
- Design High-Performance IPv6 Packet Processing Paths — Architect and optimize the IPv6 dataplane for packet forwarding, classification, ACL matching, and session lookup within the sonicwall high-performance packet-processing pipeline.
- Resolve Complex IPv6 Protocol Issues — Diagnose and resolve deep-rooted interoperability, conformance, and performance issues involving IPv6 neighbor discovery, prefix delegation, ICMPv6 error handling, and fragmentation edge cases.
- Establish IPv6 Protocol Conformance Standards — Define and drive compliance with IETF IPv6 RFCs (RFC 2460, RFC 4291, RFC 4861, RFC 4862, RFC 6724, RFC 8200, and related extensions) within the Sonicwall frewall codebase.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration — Work closely with Platform, Security, Data Platform, and QA teams to integrate IPv6 changes safely across subsystems and validate correctness at scale.
- Prototype and Evaluate IPv6 Technologies — Evaluate emerging IPv6 transition mechanisms (464XLAT, MAP-T, CLAT, SRv6) and contribute to next-generation NGFW networking capabilities.
- Influence Technical Direction — Drive architectural decisions, IPv6 scalability strategies, and long-term technical roadmap for protocol parity and government/federal compliance (USGv6, IPv6-ready certification, DoD IPv6 mandates).
- Mentorship & Technical Leadership — Serve as the IPv6 subject-matter expert (SME) for the Sonicwall frewall engineering org; mentor senior and mid-level engineers and lead cross-team IPv6 technical design reviews.
Requirements
- 7- 9+ years of hands-on C/C++ systems-level development for networking platforms — with a strong emphasis on routers, Layer-3 switches, carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) devices, or network security appliances.
- Deep IPv6 Protocol Expertise — Proven, production-level implementation experience with:
- IPv6 addressing, subnetting, and prefix delegation (DHCPv6-PD)
- Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP), Router Advertisements (RA), and MLDv2
- IPv6 routing protocols (OSPFv3, BGP with IPv6 AFI/SAFI, RIPng)
- IPsec/IKEv2 over IPv6 transport
- IPv6 ACLs, PBR, and traffic classification at line rate
- IPv6 transition and coexistence mechanisms (Dual-Stack, 6in4, 6rd, NAT64/DNS64, 464XLAT)
- L2/L3/L4 Networking Depth — Solid understanding of Ethernet, VLANs, 802.1Q, bridging, routing (static and dynamic), NAT, firewall state tables, and VPN tunneling in the context of both IPv4 and IPv6.
- High-Performance Packet Processing — Experience with DPDK, ODP, OFP, XDP/eBPF, or comparable frameworks for low-latency, high-throughput packet forwarding is a strong advantage.
- Protocol Conformance & Testing — Experience validating IPv6 implementations against IETF RFC requirements and government IPv6-ready test suites (USGv6, IPv6-Ready Logo Phase-2) is highly desirable.
- Strong Debugging & Diagnostic Skills — Proficient with tcpdump, Wireshark (IPv6 dissectors), GDB, kernel trace tools, and network emulation environments (GNS3, EVE-NG, or equivalent) for root-cause analysis of IPv6 issues.
- Communication & Leadership — Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the proven ability to lead cross-functional IPv6 design discussions, write technical specifications, and represent engineering in product and architecture reviews.
Nice to Have
- Experience with government / federal IPv6 compliance requirements (DoD IPv6 mandate, NIST SP 500-267, USGv6 Profile).
- Exposure to SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6) or MPLS over IPv6 architectures.
- Familiarity with Sonicwall frewall, SonicWall NGFWs, or similar embedded network security firmware.
- Working knowledge of WireGuard over IPv6 transport.
- Experience with automated IPv6 test frameworks (RFC 2544, IXIA, Spirent, or similar).
#LI-DS9
#LI-Pune
#LI-Hybrid
#LI-IPv6