IoT Network & Edge Engineer

When to Use

• Design device connectivity—MQTT, CoAP, HTTP/REST device APIs; QoS, retain, and session semantics
• Plan LPWAN and mesh—LoRaWAN, Zigbee, Z-Wave, BLE transport roles and gateway backhaul
• Architect edge gateways and protocol bridges—northbound cloud, southbound field protocols
• Define MQTT topics, ACLs, and broker scale—namespace design, shared subscriptions, clustering
• Implement device identity, provisioning, and PKI—bootstrap, cert rotation, revocation
• Design OTA update architecture—staged rollouts, bandwidth-aware delivery, rollback at edge
• Engineer offline tolerance—store-and-forward, edge buffering, sync after reconnect
• Trade off bandwidth, latency, and battery—payload sizing, sleep schedules, edge aggregation
• Integrate cloud IoT platforms—AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub, GCP IoT concepts; shadows and rules
• Deploy edge analytics and rules—Greengrass, IoT Edge modules, K3s edge workloads
• Segment IoT networks—dedicated VLANs/VRFs, zero-trust device access, broker isolation
• Operate fleet observability—metrics, last-will, desired/reported state, fleet health dashboards

When NOT to Use

• Enterprise Wi-Fi WLAN design, RF surveys, and 802.11 roaming (unless Wi-Fi is only one IoT transport) → wireless-wifi-mobility-specialist
• OT/ICS plant networks, Purdue model, and industrial control security → scada-ics-cyber-security-specialist
• Embedded firmware without connectivity, RTOS drivers, or bare-metal timing → embedded-real-time-software-engineer
• Carrier BGP/MPLS backbone, IX peering, and internet routing → network-backbone-architect
• SD-WAN overlay policy and branch breakout as primary deliverable → sd-wan-engineer
• Cloud landing zone, VPC foundation, and account guardrails → cloud-architect
• Implement cloud networking and managed services without IoT device plane → cloud-engineer
• Cloud security program, CSPM, and corporate IdP as primary deliverable → cloud-security-engineer
• Internal developer platform, golden paths, and portal roadmap → platform-engineer
• Geospatial pipelines, map matching, and fleet location APIs without connectivity layer → geospatial-telematics-developer
• ML training, feature stores, and model serving for telemetry analytics → data-scientist / ml-ops-engineer

Related skills

Core Workflows

1. Scope and boundaries

Clarify device classes, transports, scale targets, and compliance constraints.

See references/iotnetworkedge_scope.md.

2. Connectivity and LPWAN

Select protocols, radio roles, and payload contracts per device class.

See references/connectivityprotocolsand_lpwans.md.

3. Edge gateways and bridges

Place gateways, map protocol translation, and define backhaul resilience.

See references/edgegatewaysandprotocolbridges.md.

4. Identity, provisioning, and OTA

Bootstrap trust, rotate credentials, and stage firmware delivery safely.

See references/deviceidentityprovisioning_ota.md.

5. MQTT topics, brokers, and scale

Design namespaces, ACLs, HA brokers, and fleet-scale connection patterns.

See references/mqtttopicsbrokersandscale.md.

6. Cloud integration, operations, and security

Wire cloud IoT services, observability, segmentation, and runbooks.

See references/cloudintegrationoperations_security.md.

Outputs

• Connectivity architecture — transports per tier, protocol matrix, QoS and retry policy
• Gateway and bridge spec — southbound/northbound maps, buffering, and failover behavior
• Topic and ACL catalog — hierarchy, shared subs, retained message policy, tenant isolation
• Provisioning and PKI runbook — bootstrap flows, cert templates, rotation and revocation
• OTA rollout plan — channels, rings, bandwidth budgets, rollback and attestation hooks
• Edge deployment model — modules/containers, offline sync, and cloud command path
• Fleet observability pack — metrics, shadows/state, alerts, and last-will semantics
• Segmentation diagram — VLANs/VRFs, firewall zones, broker tenancy, and zero-trust device access

Reference files