Network Systems Engineer

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that celebrates and values diversity. We firmly believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices, working together, increases our capacity to serve our visitors and fulfill our mission. We welcome people from all walks of life into our team and strongly encourage people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans, and people with disabilities to apply.

Job Summary:

Under limited supervision, implement, operate, and maintain the Aquarium’s multi-site WAN/LAN covering wired and wireless infrastructure, routing/switching, firewalls, VPNs, and the core services they depend on. Perform day-to-day reliability and performance (including availability, capacity, and latency) monitoring and alerting. Drive root-cause analysis and remediation for incidents and chronic problems. Partner closely with the IT team and vendors to plan and execute changes, renew support agreements, manage RMAs, and align upgrades with security best practices and SLAs. Test and maintain disaster-recovery procedures, produce and update authoritative L2/L3/RF diagrams, inventories, and SOPs/runbooks, and recommend process and architecture improvements to retire technical debt and prevent bottlenecks.  Perform other duties as required.

This is a hybrid role, so the candidate must live within commuting distance of the aquarium to fulfill the on-site requirements of the job.

Core Activities:

• Operate and maintain production networks (wired/Wi-Fi, routing/switching, firewalls, VPNs, controllers/APs).
• Respond/remediate tier one physical/cloud and logical infrastructure issues, replace/repair/reconfigure gear at sites.
• Provide escalation support to the Service Desk to meet SLAs/quality goals.
• Maintain/renew support agreements for critical networking gear.
• Maintain the operation of the Aquarium’s computer networks, firewalls, VPNs, switches, and routers, and all associated equipment.
• Design/manage monitoring & alerting (NMS/telemetry), report on utilization and availability.
• Manage and update disaster recovery plan and procedures to ensure MBA systems are protected.
• Update and maintain network documentation (L2/L3/RF diagrams), inventories, SOPs/runbooks.
• Recommend and implement process improvements to optimize network efficiency.
• Update and maintain process documents and networking diagrams.
• Manage vendor relationships, leverage support/RMA channels effectively.
• Work closely with internal stakeholders to prioritize, plan, and execute new features and capabilities.
• Stay abreast with networking and security best practices and implement best practice security standards. Maintain current knowledge and understanding of security and networking best practices to ensure the Aquarium utilizes optimal solutions and remains secure.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills & Abilities (KSAs):

• BS/BA degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
• 4+ years’ experience in the related area as an individual contributor
• Knowledge of core networking fundamentals — OSI/TCP/IP, IPv4/IPv6, CIDR/VLSM, ARP, ICMP
• Knowledge of the physical layer, cabling standards, optics/transceivers, PoE budgets, rack/power/grounding, and environmental monitoring
• Knowledge of switching, VLANs, 802.1Q trunking, STP/RSTP/MST, LACP/port-channels, loop prevention
• Knowledge of routing, static routes, OSPF, BGP basics (policies, filtering), redistribution, ECMP
• Knowledge of cloud & hybrid networking, AWS/Azure/GCP, VPC/VNet patterns, Transit/ExpressRoute/Interconnect, S2S VPNs, SDN concepts
• Knowledge of WAN design, SD-WAN concepts, IPsec/DMVPN, MPLS, QoS/CoS for latency-sensitive traffic
• Skill in wireless/RF, 802.11 standards, channel/power planning, roaming, SNR, WPA2/3-Enterprise, controller ops, site surveys/heatmaps
• Skill in firewall administration, rule-based design, NAT, stateful vs. NGFW L7, SSL decryption, IPS profiles, HA pairs/failover
• Skill in segmentation & access control, ACLs, VRFs, microsegmentation, 802.1X/NAC (RADIUS/TACACS+), Zero-Trust principles
• Skill in troubleshooting & packet analysis, Wireshark/tcpdump fluency, MTU/MSS issues, asymmetric paths, latency/jitter/loss diagnosis
• Ability to manage core services (DNS/DHCP/IPAM), DHCP scopes/options, DNS records/split-horizon, IPAM tooling, and hygiene
• Ability to create documentation, accurate L2/L3 diagrams, RF maps, runbooks/SOPs, naming standards, and maintain the single source-of-truth
• Ability to work within and maintain Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Core Values

Physical Requirements to Perform Essential Job Functions:

• Typical office equipment
• Constant sitting, standing, walking, bending
• Occasional unassisted lifting up to 50 lbs.
• Typical office environment, main aquarium and exhibits, occasional offsite events, may need to crawl into confined spaces

Annual Compensation Range:

$87,100-$107,000 USD annually. Starting rate will vary based on previous experience and relevant skills/knowledge set.