Senior Network Operations Engineer

Position Overview:

Our client is seeking a Senior Network Engineer to provide operational and engineering support for a geographically distributed network supporting critical research and laboratory environments across the United States and Europe.

The engineer will serve as a senior technical resource for day-to-day network operations, implementation, troubleshooting, lifecycle management, documentation, and onsite support, while partnering with infrastructure engineering teams responsible for network architecture, security, standards, automation, and long-term technical strategy.

The position is based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area to provide Eastern Time operational coverage and hands-on support for regional facilities, while collaborating with engineering and business teams across the U.S. West Coast, U.S. East Coast, and Central Europe.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Own day-to-day operational support of network infrastructure supporting critical research and laboratory environments.
• Serve as the primary engineering escalation point for network operational issues, escalating architectural, security, policy, or significant risk decisions when appropriate.
• Troubleshoot complex Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity, routing, switching, wireless, VPN, firewall, ISP, DNS/DHCP, and network performance issues.
• Implement network changes based on approved architecture, engineering standards, designs, and change-management processes.
• Configure, deploy, maintain, upgrade, and troubleshoot Cisco and Meraki infrastructure.
• Support WAN and inter-site connectivity between facilities, cloud environments, partners, and research locations.
• Provide hands-on onsite network and infrastructure support at regional locations when required.
• Coordinate troubleshooting and service restoration with telecommunications carriers, vendors, facilities teams, security teams, engineering groups, and site personnel.
• Maintain accurate network diagrams, configurations, IP addressing, circuit inventory, rack and equipment documentation, and operational records.
• Develop and maintain runbooks, standard operating procedures, implementation plans, validation procedures, rollback plans, and troubleshooting documentation.
• Execute network lifecycle activities including software and firmware upgrades, hardware replacement, configuration maintenance, technical debt remediation, and equipment refresh activities.
• Monitor network availability, health, capacity, and performance and proactively identify potential issues before they affect critical operations.
• Lead operational troubleshooting from initial identification through restoration, validation, documentation, and follow-up.
• Support incident response, root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and post-incident documentation.
• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive operational activities and improve monitoring, configuration management, troubleshooting, and operational consistency.
• Participate in network deployments, site buildouts, infrastructure upgrades, and modernization activities throughout the U.S. and Europe as required.
• Collaborate effectively across Eastern, Pacific, and Central European working hours when operational requirements require cross-region coordination.
  
  Operational Ownership:

The successful candidate must be comfortable independently owning operational problems from initial identification through resolution.

This includes gathering technical information, troubleshooting and isolating issues, coordinating with internal teams and external vendors, developing and implementing approved changes, validating service restoration, documenting outcomes, and identifying opportunities to prevent recurrence.

The engineer should be capable of receiving an established architecture, technical standard, or engineering objective and independently driving the associated operational work to completion with minimal oversight.

The expectation is ownership, not simply escalation.

Required Technical Skills:

Routing and Switching:

• Advanced Cisco routing and switching experience.
• Strong understanding of Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, including VLANs, trunking, STP, routing, ACLs, redundancy, and high availability.
• Strong BGP and OSPF implementation and troubleshooting skills.
• Experience troubleshooting complex WAN and inter-site connectivity.
• Strong packet-level troubleshooting capabilities using packet captures, flow data, device telemetry, and tools such as Wireshark.
• CCNP Enterprise certification or equivalent demonstrated enterprise networking experience. 

• Extensive experience supporting Cisco Catalyst network infrastructure.
• Strong Cisco Meraki Dashboard experience across switching, wireless, monitoring, troubleshooting, and security platforms.
• Experience with enterprise switch stacks, redundant network designs, optics, fiber connectivity, and high-speed Ethernet.
• Experience performing software upgrades, hardware replacements, configuration changes, and lifecycle-management activities.

• Working knowledge of Microsoft Azure networking or comparable cloud-networking environments.
• Understanding IPsec VPNs, BGP, virtual networking, routing, network security controls, and hybrid cloud connectivity.
• Experience supporting networks that span traditional on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
• Azure Virtual WAN or similar cloud WAN experience is desirable.

• Enterprise wireless troubleshooting and operational experience.
• Familiarity with 802.1X, certificate-based authentication, NAC/RADIUS, guest networking, and enterprise wireless infrastructure.
• Ability to troubleshoot connectivity across clients, authentication, switching, wireless, and upstream network dependencies. 

• Working knowledge of enterprise network segmentation, firewalls, ACLs, VPNs, Zero Trust principles, secure remote access, and certificate-based authentication.
• Ability to implement security requirements and approved network controls while maintaining operational availability.
• Experience supporting infrastructure subject to enterprise security, compliance, and change-management requirements.

• Experience with PowerShell, Python, REST APIs, or equivalent network automation technologies.
• Ability to automate repetitive network operational tasks, validation, data collection, documentation, or configuration workflows.
• Familiarity with structured configuration management and version control is desirable.

• The successful candidate must demonstrate strong technical documentation practices.
• Documentation should be sufficiently detailed to allow another qualified engineer to understand, operate, troubleshoot, and recover the environment without relying on undocumented institutional knowledge. 
• Responsibilities include creating and maintaining: 
  • Network diagrams
  • Device and circuit inventories
  • IP addressing documentation
  • Configuration documentation
  • Operational runbooks
  • Standard operating procedures
  • Troubleshooting guides
  • Implementation and migration plans
  • Validation and rollback procedures
  • Incident and root-cause documentation
  • Vendor and carrier escalation information

• Provide limited hands-on infrastructure support for network-adjacent systems when onsite intervention is required, while maintaining network engineering and network operations as the primary responsibility of the role.
• This may include assisting with physical connectivity, cabling, console access, equipment installation, hardware replacement, power validation, carrier handoffs, or other infrastructure activities necessary to troubleshoot or restore network services.
• General helpdesk or end-user support is not the primary function of this position.