What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead Network Engineer position at UFP Industries?
Summary
The Lead Network Engineer provides advanced hands‑on engineering support for enterprise and hybrid cloud network infrastructure while serving as a technical leader and mentor for a team of network engineers. This role is responsible for guiding technical strategy, supporting team development, improving operational processes, and partnering closely with management to drive execution. The Lead Network Engineer remains deeply engaged in complex network design, implementation, and troubleshooting while ensuring the team delivers reliable, secure, and scalable network services aligned with business objectives.
LOCATION: This job requires working on-site 5 days a week out of our Grand Rapids, MI office.
Principal Leadership Duties And Responsibilities
The Lead Network Engineer provides advanced hands‑on engineering support for enterprise and hybrid cloud network infrastructure while serving as a technical leader and mentor for a team of network engineers. This role is responsible for guiding technical strategy, supporting team development, improving operational processes, and partnering closely with management to drive execution. The Lead Network Engineer remains deeply engaged in complex network design, implementation, and troubleshooting while ensuring the team delivers reliable, secure, and scalable network services aligned with business objectives.
LOCATION: This job requires working on-site 5 days a week out of our Grand Rapids, MI office.
Principal Leadership Duties And Responsibilities
- Conduct regular one‑on‑one meetings with network engineers and provide coaching, mentoring, and performance feedback.
- Develop, maintain, and execute individual development plans to grow team capabilities and technical depth in partnership with management.
- Perform annual performance reviews in partnership with management.
- Identify, communicate, and help remediate broken, inefficient, or unclear processes, partnering with managers to drive operational excellence.
- Collaborate with managers on backlog refinement, prioritization, and work assignment based on team skillsets and business needs.
- Serve as the technical leader for the engineering team, removing roadblocks, providing architectural guidance, and ensuring best practices.
- Support project managers and management with resource planning, sequencing, and technical oversight of critical initiatives.
- Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and elevate overall team maturity through knowledge sharing and skill development.
- Lead the end-to-end design of complex enterprise and hybrid cloud network architectures, including on-prem data centers, cloud interconnects, and global WAN topologies.
- Architect, implement, and optimize advanced routing solutions using MPLS, MP‑BGP, OSPF, VXLAN, and EVPN concepts.
- Oversee lifecycle management for Cisco switching, Meraki wireless, and Versa SD‑WAN platforms.
- Engineer and maintain Palo Alto firewall architectures, including segmentation, global security policies, and threat prevention.
- Develop and enhance secure access and authentication strategies using Cisco ISE, covering 802.1X, MAB, profiling, and TACACS policy enforcement.
- Design and support Azure hybrid connectivity, including ExpressRoute, VNET architectures, NSGs, and cloud DNS; AWS/GCP exposure a plus.
- Collaborate with cloud, security, systems, and application teams to optimize performance, boundaries, and secure connectivity patterns.
- Analyze and improve network performance across LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, wireless, and cloud environments.
- Lead complex root‑cause analyses and drive long-term corrective actions.
- Develop and maintain network automation scripts, templates, and configuration standards (Python, Ansible, Terraform preferred).
- Drive major network initiatives including modernization, cloud migrations, refresh programs, and architectural redesigns.
- Maintain high-quality documentation, architecture diagrams, and technical standards.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field.
- 10-13 years of progressive network engineering experience in enterprise-scale environments.
- Deep proficiency in MPLS, BGP/MP‑BGP, OSPF, VXLAN, EVPN, and large-scale routing architectures.
- Extensive hands-on experience with Palo Alto firewalls, segmentation, VPN, and threat prevention technologies.
- Strong understanding of SASE architectures and integration concepts.
- Expert-level experience with Cisco Catalyst, Cisco/Meraki wireless, and Versa SD‑WAN platforms.
- Strong working knowledge of Cisco ISE, including 802.1X, MAB, profiling, and policy development.
- Advanced experience designing and supporting Azure network connectivity (ExpressRoute, VNETs, NSGs, DNS).
- Familiarity with automation frameworks such as Python, Ansible, or Terraform.
- Proven experience mentoring and guiding engineers in a technical or leadership capacity.