Brazilian ISP network consultant with 15+ years of experience — is there still demand for ISP consultants in the US?
Hi everyone,
I’m from Brazil and I’ve been working in the ISP industry since around 2009.
My work today involves consulting and engineering for small and medium ISPs, including technologies and protocols such as:
- BGP
- OSPF
- CGNAT
- MPLS
- IPv4 / IPv6
- DNS
- Linux
- Proxmox
- VMware
- Docker
- monitoring and observability platforms like Zabbix, Grafana, Observium and phpIPAM
- DDoS mitigation platforms like Wanguard
Today I work with over 12 ISPs simultaneously, supporting networks ranging from a few thousand subscribers up to around 35k subscribers.
Peak traffic across these environments ranges from roughly 4 Gbps to over 220 Gbps, including work involving BGP communities, traffic engineering, CDN/cache integrations (GGC/OCA), and routing optimization.
I’m currently studying a legal move to the United States, and I’m trying to better understand how the ISP consulting market works there.
In Brazil, many regional ISPs outsource advanced networking projects and consulting because they don’t always maintain a full senior engineering team internally.
I’m curious if the same model exists in the US:
- Is there still demand for independent ISP consultants?
- Do small and medium ISPs usually hire freelancers/consultants?
- Are contracts typically project-based, monthly retainers, or full-time employment?
- Is most of the work remote nowadays?
- Are there specific areas that are currently in high demand?
I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from people already working in the US ISP industry.
Thanks!