Senior Network Architect

Summary:

Turns network discovery into the target connectivity design. Maps flows, segmentation, and dependencies, defines the planning-level hub-and-spoke network, and identifies network-driven wave and decommission constraints on the DC-exit critical path.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

A senior network architect who owns target-state design and acts as design authority and technical escalation point for the engineers doing the hands-on work. This is a design and advisory role – not a hands-on configuration or cutover role. Highly proficient with discovery streams with Cisco Meraki and other networking products

KEY TECHNOLOGIES & SKILLS

• Enterprise network architecture
• BGP, OSPF, VLANs, VRFs, spanning tree
• Firewall policy design & rationalisation
• Hybrid cloud connectivity (Azure / AWS)
• Load balancing & DC network services
• CCNP / CCIE / JNCIP

WHAT YOU ’LL DO

• Design target-state network architecture, including routing, switching, segmentation, firewall policy and connectivity topologies. Complete the discovery phase for all networking services and components and arrive at the target solution for AWS. Provide recommendations and different approaches as required.
• Produce network design documentation, including high-level and low-level designs, IP addressing schemes and traffic flow diagrams.
• Provide technical guidance and escalation support to technical SMEs and engineers executing network build, configuration and cutover activities.
• Act as design authority for the network domain, reviewing and approving configurations and migration approaches prior to execution.
• Resolve complex technical issues escalated during migration testing and cutover, providing direction to the executing resources.
• Design hybrid connectivity approaches between on-premises environments and cloud platforms.
• Define network security control requirements with client security teams and validate that designs meet them.
• Review and approve as-built documentation and migration runbooks produced by executing resources for handover.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

• Eleven or more years of enterprise network engineering experience, including at least four years in an architecture or lead engineering capacity. Strong experience with discovery and expertise in AWS service
• Deep expertise in enterprise routing and switching (BGP, OSPF, VLANs, VRFs, spanning tree) across major vendor platforms, sufficient to direct and validate the work of executing engineers.
• Strong firewall design experience, including policy design, rule migration approach and rule base rationalisation.
• Experience with building technical and leadership presentations and documentation
• Highly confident to manage multiple stakeholder requests
• Demonstrated experience designing and overseeing network migrations and cutovers in production data centre environments.
• Experience with load balancing technologies and network services in a data centre context.
• Proven ability to act as technical escalation point and design authority for a distributed engineering team.
• Ability to produce production-grade design documentation to enterprise standards.

NICE TO HAVE

• CCNP, CCIE, JNCIP or equivalent senior vendor certification.
• Hands-on experience with Azure or AWS networking (VNets, VPCs, ExpressRoute, Direct Connect, transit architectures).
• Familiarity with network automation approaches using Ansible, Python or Terraform.
• SD-WAN or software-defined data centre networking experience.

IDEAL BACKGROUND

Designing and overseeing network migrations and cutovers in production data centre environments, acting as design authority and escalation point for a distributed engineering team.

LANGUAGE

English required (written and spoken). French is an asset.