Network Optimization Engineer (Lisbon based)

About Us

1GLOBAL is a technology-driven global mobile communications provider helping enterprises and consumer brands deliver seamless connectivity worldwide. Powered by a best-in-class telecom platform, proprietary eSIM technology, and its own mobile core network across 15 countries, 1GLOBAL operates as a fully regulated telecommunications provider in 43 countries.

Founded in 2022, 1GLOBAL has rapidly become one of Europe's fastest-growing telecom technology companies, connecting more than 80 million people and devices globally. Our customers include leading banks, multinational enterprises, global retailers, travel companies, payment service providers, and digital-first businesses.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, with R&D hubs in Lisbon, Berlin, and São Paulo, 1GLOBAL employs over 550 professionals across 16 countries. With annual revenues exceeding US$200 million and a strong track record of profitability, we continue to invest in innovation, infrastructure, and international expansion as we redefine the future of global mobile connectivity.

About the Team

As 1GLOBAL expands its global customer base and service portfolio, the performance, reliability, and scalability of our mobile network are increasingly critical. As a Network Optimization Engineer, you will drive operational excellence, service assurance, and continuous improvement across our network and services, spanning multiple core network domains.

Your primary focus will be detecting, investigating, and resolving network and service issues before they impact customers. You will define the monitoring strategy, performance frameworks, and operational processes needed to spot degradation, bottlenecks, and emerging risks early, and use network data and KPIs to drive rapid incident response, thorough root cause analysis, and lasting corrective actions.

The Network Optimization team oversees network changes, defines service and network KPIs, builds recovery and resilience mechanisms, and ensures operational readiness across all network domains. Beyond resolving issues, the team turns operational learnings into structural improvements in network architecture, platform design, and service flows. Working closely with Network Engineering, Network Observability, Operations, Product, Software Engineering, Legal & Regulatory, and commercial teams, it serves as the focal point for service performance and reliability across 1GLOBAL.

Relocation to Lisbon (Portugal) is required.

About the Role

• Network Performance & KPI Analysis: Monitor, analyse, and report on network and service KPIs to identify bottlenecks, anomalies, and emerging risks, and translate insights into optimization initiatives that improve efficiency, reliability, capacity utilization, and customer experience. Define requirements for new KPIs, monitoring, and observability integrations to strengthen end-to-end visibility and enable proactive issue detection.
• Incident Troubleshooting & Restoration: Lead the investigation and resolution of complex incidents, major outages, and service degradations across mobile core domains, ensuring rapid restoration and minimal customer impact.
• Root Cause Analysis & Prevention: Own the root cause analysis (RCA) process, documenting findings and ensuring corrective and preventive actions are assigned, tracked, and completed.
• Mobile Core & Service Optimization: Analyse signalling, session behaviour, service flows, and network performance to identify and execute improvements in reliability, capacity, and customer experience.
• Traffic Management: Execute and validate traffic management and optimization activities during planned changes, congestion, failures, and other events to protect service performance and network stability.
• Network Changes & Operational Readiness: Oversee the deployment, integration, testing, and operational acceptance of new core network elements, features, and software upgrades, assessing their performance and resilience impact.
• Recovery & Resilience Engineering: Develop, test, and maintain recovery plans, troubleshooting playbooks, operational procedures, and best practices for efficient service restoration.
• Operational Design Feedback: Provide operational input to solution architecture and service design so that reliability, resilience, maintainability, and service quality are built in from the outset.
• Automation & Continuous Improvement: Build or improve scripts, diagnostics, reports, and repeatable workflows that accelerate detection, analysis, mitigation, and prevention of service issues.
• Process & Vendor Governance: Define, implement, and improve vendor management, service management, and operational governance processes, ensuring work is delivered on time and to agreed quality standards.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Work with Network Engineering, Network Observability, Operations, Product, Software Engineering, and vendors to investigate service issues and implement technical improvements.
• 24/7 On-Call Support: Participate in the 24/7 on-call rotation for the defined network scope, supporting timely incident response and service restoration.

Requirements

About You

Must Have

• Mobile Network Architecture: Strong understanding of mobile network architectures and technologies across 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE, and 5G domains.
• MVNO & Roaming: Experience with MVNO architectures and ecosystems, including roaming environments and their technical, commercial, and regulatory considerations.
• Networking & Signalling: Strong networking fundamentals, protocol and security knowledge, and hands-on experience with SIGTRAN, Diameter, SCTP, and GTP.
• Telecom Application Protocols: Hands-on experience with MAP, CAMEL, and SIP, and solid understanding of LTE, 5G, IMS, VoLTE, VoWiFi, and IP-based services.
• Troubleshooting & RCA: Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex mobile network issues, correlate signalling and service behaviour, identify root causes, and implement sustainable fixes.
• Performance Analysis: Ability to interpret network metrics and KPIs, correlate performance across multiple domains, and identify degradation and optimization opportunities.
• Monitoring & Service Assurance: Familiarity with mobile network monitoring, observability, and performance management tools.
• Cloud & Virtualized Telecom: Experience with cloud-native solutions, virtualization technologies, and modern telecom infrastructure platforms.
• Automation & Scripting: Experience using scripts, automation, and data-driven approaches to improve network operations and diagnostic workflows.
• Collaboration & Ownership: Proactive, analytical, and detail-oriented approach; ability to collaborate effectively across multicultural, geographically distributed technical teams.
• Experience & Education: Relevant professional experience in the design, implementation, optimization, or operation of mobile core network services. Degree in Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Communication: Professional English proficiency and ability to communicate technical findings and recommendations clearly.

Nice to Have

• Service Management: Familiarity of ITIL, service management practices, and operational excellence frameworks.
• Cross-Functional Delivery: Experience collaborating with product, engineering, operations, and commercial stakeholders on service improvement initiatives.
• Advanced Optimization: Experience with large-scale multi-domain performance analysis, proactive issue detection, and preventive network optimization initiatives.

Benefits

Why 1GLOBAL?

• Growth Opportunities: Advance your career in one of the fastest growing telecommunications companies, expanding over 50% year-on-year under the leadership of successful tech entrepreneurs.
• Major Transaction Exposure: Be in the driver’s seat for transactions that will have an impact on the future telco industry.
• Work with a Talented Team: From the Board and the Founders to the Senior Management Team, you will collaborate daily with the most capable and renowned external advisors and constantly being exposed to talented and driven individuals.
• Dynamic Work Environment: Thrive in a collaborative, fast-paced workplace where innovation is encouraged, and every contribution counts.
• Professional Development: Work alongside industry experts to enhance your skills and knowledge in a cutting-edge field.
• International Experience: Gain opportunities to work in different 1GLOBAL offices around the world as you grow within the company.
• Open Communication Culture: Join a team where your ideas are heard, and open dialogue is encouraged, fostering a supportive and transparent work environment.
• Get Things Done Attitude: Be part of a results-driven team that values efficiency, creativity, and the drive to make a tangible impact in the industry.

1GLOBAL is an equal opportunity employer, we value your character as much as your talent. Diversity drives our innovation, and we offer a collaborative, dynamic, and international work environment. We are excited for you to join our mission to revolutionise connectivity globally.