How far ahead should you search for a faculty job?
The field of academia is hypercompetitive due to the excess amount of PhD-students and Postdocs vs a low number of faculty positions (read this). Even people doing postdocs at top places have difficulties finding faculty positions and apart from a network also luck becomes an important factor if there are >100 applications for a faculty position.

Therefore you should start searching for a faculty position at least 2 years ahead (no, this is not a joke).