Network Engineer SME

Description

The company is a transformative IT authority that offers technology solutions and consulting to its clients, helping IT executives gain an edge through integration, automation and innovation.

The company is headquartered in Irvine, California, employs more than 1,200 people across the United States, and has major field offices in Denver, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Lexington, Los Angeles, Louisville, Texas and San Francisco.

This is a W2 contract role for an initial 6 months, with potential to be extended or converted to a full-time position.

The role is the principal network subject matter expert for enterprise network architecture, modernization, resiliency, security and performance on a high-priority federal infrastructure program. The expert sets technical direction, creates standards and advises customer and program leadership in mission-critical environments.

The role combines strategic leadership with hands-on work: approving designs, building target-state architectures and migration plans, solving hard problems, and acting as the final technical escalation point. The work is mainly onsite at secure customer locations and includes mentoring engineering teams and coordinating cross-functional delivery.

Responsibilities

• Act as the onsite network technical authority and trusted advisor to customer and program leadership.
• Define network architecture principles, engineering standards, reference designs and technology roadmaps for mission-critical environments.
• Assess architecture, performance, capacity, resiliency, security, dependencies and failure domains across enterprise, data-center, HPC, manufacturing, test and remote-site environments.
• Develop and approve target-state architectures, bills of material, migration strategies, implementation plans, test plans and operational-readiness criteria.
• Lead technical discovery, architecture reviews and risk assessments, weigh design alternatives and give authoritative recommendations.
• Make sure network solutions meet requirements for routing, switching, segmentation, security, high availability, remote access, inter-site connectivity, observability and disaster recovery.
• Serve as the final escalation point for complex incidents and performance issues, lead root-cause analysis and drive corrective actions.
• Set configuration, documentation, monitoring and operational standards that improve consistency, supportability and service performance.
• Explain technical decisions, risks, dependencies and trade-offs to customer stakeholders, program leadership, project managers and engineering teams.
• Coordinate technical delivery across network, security, systems, storage, facilities, DevOps, application and program teams.
• Mentor engineers, provide technical oversight and strengthen network engineering practices across the program.
• Support onsite assessments, maintenance windows, migrations, incident response and post-implementation stabilization as required.

Requirements

• Show deep network expertise, sound architectural judgment and the ability to make technical decisions across customer, government, contractor and engineering organizations.
• Have 10+ years of progressively responsible experience designing, modernizing and supporting complex enterprise networks.
• Have served as a network architect, technical authority or senior escalation resource in mission-critical environments.
• Have expertise with Cisco enterprise routing, switching, firewall, VPN and data-center technologies.
• Have advanced knowledge of BGP, OSPF, VLANs, VRFs, QoS, multicast, segmentation, high availability and resilient network design.
• Have developed and approved network architectures, standards, bills of material, migration strategies, implementation plans, test plans and operational documentation.
• Have strong network security knowledge, including firewall policy, micro-segmentation, secure remote access, network access control and Zero Trust principles.
• Have expert-level troubleshooting and root-cause analysis skills across routing, performance, availability, DNS, DHCP, NTP, IP address management, authentication and application connectivity.
• Have experience with telemetry, SNMP, syslog, NetFlow/IPFIX, packet capture, alerting and performance baselining.
• Can assess technical risk, weigh design trade-offs and communicate clear recommendations to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Can lead cross-functional technical work, mentor senior engineers and work independently onsite in secure, regulated, federal, defense, manufacturing or comparable environments.
• Bachelor's degree in a related field is preferred but not required.
• Preferred: knowledge of EVPN/VXLAN, software-defined networking, data-center fabrics and high-performance or low-latency networks.
• Preferred: experience integrating networks with VMware, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Tanzu, AWS and hybrid-cloud platforms.
• Preferred: network automation using Python, Ansible, APIs, infrastructure as code or CI/CD practices.
• Preferred: experience supporting operational technology, manufacturing, specialized test equipment, legacy platforms, air-gapped environments or systems with limited maintenance windows.
• Preferred: knowledge of NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, CMMC, vulnerability management, SIEM/EDR integration and secure software-import processes.
• Preferred: familiarity with TDM, serial circuits and specialized communications technologies.

Conditions

Work is primarily onsite at secure customer sites, with the hybrid on-site schedule still to be finalized.

Work may take place at several customer locations in the Baltimore area, so you should be flexible about assignment and how often you go onsite.

No active security clearance is needed at the start, but you must be eligible to obtain and maintain one.

Pay estimate is $223,000 to $243,000 USD. Actual salary depends on location, experience, skill set, performance, licensure and certification, and business needs, and may differ in other locations. Some roles may also include variable bonuses or commissions outside base salary.

The role involves staying seated for long periods, using a computer and keyboard, communicating in person, by phone and electronically, moving around the office occasionally, lifting up to 15 pounds as needed, and having close vision with focus adjustment. Reasonable accommodations are available for people with disabilities.

The company does not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic, and voluntary demographic information is kept confidential and not used in employment decisions.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
• 401(k) with employer match, 529 college savings plan, health savings account, life insurance and long-term disability coverage.
• Competitive compensation.
• Training and development programs.
• Major offices stocked with snacks and beverages.
• Work-life balance and generous paid time off.