Network Operations Lead Specialist Engineer

Job Title: Network Operations Lead Specialist Engineer

Location: San Jose, CA

Experience: 12 Years

Employment Type: Contract

Interview Type: In-Person or Webcam

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Network Operations Lead Specialist Engineer with extensive hands-on expertise managing large-scale enterprise networks, network operations centers (NOC), and mission-critical infrastructure. The ideal candidate will be responsible for overseeing network operations, ensuring high availability of network services, leading incident response, and driving continuous improvements in network performance and reliability. This role requires strong leadership skills, deep technical knowledge across routing, switching, firewalls, SD-WAN, cloud networking, and network monitoring tools.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead daily network operations, monitoring, and performance management activities for complex enterprise environments.
• Drive troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and timely resolution of high-severity network incidents and outages.
• Oversee end-to-end network operations including LAN, WAN, WLAN, Security, Data Center, and cloud networking.
• Manage NOC processes, escalation workflows, and operational standards to ensure network uptime and service reliability.
• Develop and implement capacity planning, network performance optimization, and proactive monitoring strategies.
• Coordinate and guide cross-functional teams including engineering, security, infrastructure, and support groups.
• Create and maintain network documentation, runbooks, dashboards, topology maps, and operational procedures.
• Support upgrades, patching, enhancements, migrations, and deployment of new network solutions.
• Lead vendor management, evaluate tools and equipment, and participate in technology roadmap planning.
• Ensure compliance with security standards, data protection policies, and regulatory requirements.
• Mentor junior engineers, providing technical guidance and training as needed.
• Conduct incident post-mortem reviews and implement improvement plans.
  
  

Required Qualifications

• 12 years of experience in network operations, network engineering, or NOC leadership roles.
• Strong expertise in routing and switching technologies (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS, STP, VXLAN, EVPN).
• Hands-on experience with firewalls and security platforms such as Palo Alto, Cisco ASA, Check Point, or Fortinet.
• Experience managing SD-WAN environments (Cisco Viptela, Meraki, Aruba, Silver Peak, etc.).
• Proficiency with Data Center network infrastructure including Nexus, ACI, F5 load balancers, and VPN technologies.
• Strong knowledge of network monitoring tools (SolarWinds, Splunk, Nagios, Wireshark, NetBrain, SevOne, etc.).
• Experience supporting cloud/hybrid networks (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Proven leadership and team management experience with large-scale distributed networks.
• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and communication skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
  
  

Preferred Skills

• Relevant certifications such as CCNP, CCIE, PCNSE, JNCIP, AWS/Azure network certification, or equivalent.
• Experience with automation and scripting (Python, Ansible, Bash) for operational efficiency.
• Knowledge of ITIL processes and experience in ITSM environments (ServiceNow preferred).
• Experience managing carrier services, telecom circuits, SDN, and network virtualization.
• Prior experience working in high-availability environments such as telecom, cloud, or large enterprise networks.