Senior Network And Security Engineer

Company Description

HighPoint, a privately held and minority-owned IT solutions provider established in 1996, is dedicated to putting technology in service of people. With headquarters in Sparta, NJ, and additional offices in Charlotte, London, and Amsterdam, HighPoint helps enterprises navigate digital transformation through a people-first approach founded on honesty, integrity, and purpose. The company specializes in modern networks, hybrid cloud, cybersecurity, and global IT integration to deliver rapid, impactful business results. HighPoint is committed to building long-term partnerships, focusing on driving trust and measurable business outcomes for its clients.

Role Description

The Principal Network & Security Engineer is the senior technical authority responsible for the architecture-level operation, troubleshooting, and stabilization of complex enterprise network and security ecosystems within a 24×7×365 managed services environment. This role owns technical execution across Layer 2–7 networking, next-generation security controls, identity-dependent access systems, and infrastructure integrations, supporting highly available, business-critical platforms.

The role requires deep hands-on expertise across routing and switching (BGP, OSPF, STP, VLANs), firewall and security platforms (stateful inspection, NAT, IPS/IDS, application-layer policy), VPN and secure access technologies (IPsec, SSL, SD-WAN, ZTNA), and the ability to trace traffic flows end-to-end across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments. The engineer routinely performs packet-level analysis, flow validation, and policy impact assessments to isolate complex connectivity and security failures.

This position serves as the technical lead during P1/P2 incidents, driving structured fault isolation across network, firewall, load balancing, virtualization, and operating system layers while coordinating remediation activities across internal teams and external vendors. The engineer is responsible for de-escalating high-pressure outages, validating interim mitigations, and restoring services with minimal business impact, while maintaining clear, technically accurate communication with senior customer stakeholders and leadership.

The role also provides deep integration knowledge across information systems, including Windows and Linux operating systems, identity and authentication services (directory services, RADIUS, SSO), virtualization platforms, and application infrastructure dependencies, ensuring security and connectivity controls are consistently enforced without impacting performance or availability.

This role is essential to ensuring network resiliency, security posture, and operational stability, while continuously improving platform maturity through documentation, standardization, and proactive engineering.

Responsibilities

Network & Connectivity Engineering

•          Design, support, and troubleshoot enterprise network environments across:

•          Routing and switching (LAN/WAN)

•          Data center and campus networks

•          Cloud and hybrid connectivity

•          Perform advanced troubleshooting across:

•          VLANs, routing protocols, NAT, VPNs

•          Load balancing and traffic flows

•          Latency, packet loss, and performance issues

•          Diagnose and resolve cross-domain connectivity issues spanning network, firewall, virtualization, and operating systems.

Security Platform & Controls Engineering

Support and operate network and infrastructure security platforms across multiple OEMs, including but not limited to:

•          Firewalls (next-generation and perimeter)

•          VPN and secure remote access solutions

•          IDS/IPS and traffic inspection

•          Implement and support security controls aligned with:

•          Least privilege

•          Network segmentation

•          Secure access and authentication

•          Partner with vulnerability, identity, and compliance teams to support secure system operations.

Information Systems & Infrastructure Integration

•          Provide senior-level support for information systems dependencies, including:

•          Identity and authentication services (e.g., directory services, RADIUS, SSO)

•          Server and virtualization platforms

•          Application infrastructure dependencies

•          Maintain strong working knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems and their interaction with network and security layers.

Understand infrastructure requirements supporting enterprise databases and applications (including Oracle-based systems), focusing on connectivity, performance, and availability.

Incident, Change & Problem Management

•          Act as a technical lead during P1/P2 incidents, owning:

•          End-to-end triage and fault isolation

•          Incident de-escalation

•          Technical communication to customers and leadership

•          Execute and review network and security change requests, ensuring:

•          Risk assessment and impact analysis

•          Back-out and rollback planning

•          Proper documentation and peer review

•          Participate in root cause analysis (RCA) and drive long-term corrective actions.

OEM-Agnostic Platform Expertise

Demonstrate hands-on experience across multiple OEM platforms, including (but not limited to):

•          Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Juniper, Arista

•          Load balancers, wireless platforms, SD-WAN solutions

•          Network and security tooling integrated into managed services

•          Adapt quickly to new technologies and customer environments without vendor lock-in bias.

Documentation & Operational Excellence

•          Produce and maintain high-quality technical documentation, including:

•          Network and security diagrams

•          SOPs and runbooks

•          Incident and change records

•          Ensure alignment with ITIL-based operational practices and internal standards.

•          Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives focused on:

•          Stability and resiliency

•          Automation and tooling optimization

•          Reduced MTTR and operational risk

On-Call & Team Collaboration

•          Participate in a structured on-call rotation supporting a global environment.

•          Provide mentorship and escalation support to junior engineers.

•          Collaborate effectively across time zones and disciplines within the DOC.

Requirements

•           5–10 years’ experience in Managed Services / MSP / NOC / SOC / DOC environments

•           5 years of people leadership experience managing globally distributed teams

•           Proven experience operating in a 24×7×365 enterprise support model

•           Strong working knowledge of MSP tooling, including:

o   AutoTask, Datto RMM, LogicMonitor, BeyondTrust, CyberArk

•           Broad technical understanding across:

o   Networking & security operations

o   Infrastructure, cloud, and endpoint management

o   Monitoring, alerting, and automation platforms

•           Experience working alongside executive or senior operations leadership

•           ITIL Foundation or higher

•           Experience with AI-Ops, automation frameworks, or large-scale monitoring platforms

•           Background supporting enterprise and multi-site global customers

•           Strong operational reporting and metrics-driven mindset

Key Competencies

•       Operational leadership in high-availability environments

•       Technical breadth across MSP service domains

•       Global team leadership and cultural awareness

•       Strong decision-making under pressure

•       Process-driven, quality-focused mindset

•       Collaborative leadership and executive presence