OverviewDecisionPoint seeks a Field Operations Lead to oversee and coordinate field-support operations for the USMEPCOM ENLIST program. This position manages technician assignments, on-call coverage, outage-recovery support, site-support schedules, and equipment relocations at Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) locations.
The Field Operations Lead coordinates closely with the Outage Response Team, Service Desk, network and systems engineering teams, Government personnel, telecommunications carriers, utilities, vendors, and other service providers. During critical incidents, the Lead organizes field resources, maintains accurate incident timelines, supports hourly SEV 1 and SEV 2 status updates, and helps drive services toward restoration.
The position also coordinates field support for network cabling, equipment installation, site surveys, and MEPS location moves. Success requires strong technical-team leadership, disciplined incident coordination, and the ability to translate rapidly changing operational information into clear assignments and stakeholder communications.
This position is remote, with Chicago-area candidates preferred. The role requires participation in an on-call environment and travel to USMEPCOM Headquarters and geographically dispersed MEPS locations as operational needs require.
Note: By applying to this position, you acknowledge and consent to having your resume included in an active competitive government contract bid.
Duties & Responsibilities
The Field Operations Lead will:
- Lead and coordinate day-to-day field operations across USMEPCOM Headquarters and supported MEPS locations.
- Assign field technicians based on site requirements, technical qualifications, workload, geographic coverage, and operational priorities.
- Develop and maintain field-support schedules, technician rosters, escalation paths, and on-call coverage.
- Coordinate field resources supporting the program92s continuous 24/7/365 outage-response capability.
- Ensure qualified on-site resources can be mobilized in accordance with contractual outage-response requirements.
- Coordinate the field response to network, system, application, telecommunications, power, cabling, and equipment outages.
- Receive and assess field-support requests and assign the appropriate personnel, equipment, vendors, or service providers.
- Support immediate incident response upon notification of an outage or significant performance degradation.
- Coordinate corrective actions among the Service Desk, Outage Response Team, engineering teams, site personnel, telecommunications carriers, utilities, subcontractors, and vendors.
- Organize and support hourly status updates for active SEV 1 and SEV 2 incidents.
- Maintain accurate incident timelines that document notifications, technician dispatches, troubleshooting activities, decisions, communications, workarounds, recovery actions, and final restoration.
- Provide clear operational updates to the Outage Response Team Lead, Service Desk leadership, program management, and Government stakeholders.
- Escalate unresolved incidents, resource shortages, access problems, vendor delays, and other barriers that may affect service restoration.
- Coordinate the implementation of approved temporary workarounds and contingency measures when full restoration is not immediately possible.
- Verify that field technicians follow approved troubleshooting, safety, security, change-control, and recovery procedures.
- Support root-cause analysis by gathering field observations, equipment information, technician notes, photographs, logs, test results, and other supporting evidence.
- Contribute field-operations information to written incident reports, including timelines, corrective measures, root causes, and preventive recommendations.
- Support the maintenance and quarterly review of outage-response procedures and the program92s Incident Response Plan.
- Identify gaps in field readiness, technician coverage, tools, spare equipment, contact information, access procedures, and recovery documentation.
- Coordinate planned and emergency installations, equipment refreshes, maintenance activities, and component replacements.
- Plan field support for MEPS relocations, including the movement and reinstallation of network equipment and related supplies.
- Coordinate site surveys, network-drop requirements, equipment inventories, installation estimates, access requirements, and implementation schedules.
- Support cable-management activities involving network racks, patch panels, copper and fiber cabling, and related telecommunications components.
- Ensure field teams update site records, physical diagrams, equipment information, trouble tickets, and technical documentation after completing work.
- Track field assignments, technician arrival and departure times, work status, open dependencies, and completion evidence.
- Maintain current contact lists and escalation information for Government stakeholders, site personnel, vendors, telecommunications carriers, utilities, and other third parties.
- Develop and maintain field guides, standard operating procedures, checklists, call trees, dispatch instructions, and recovery documentation.
- Monitor recurring field issues and recommend improvements to technician coverage, recovery procedures, site readiness, documentation, and preventive maintenance.
- Provide field-operations status, accomplishments, outage statistics, risks, issues, and corrective actions for program reporting.
- Participate in operational readiness reviews, after-action reviews, planning meetings, and continual service-improvement activities.
- Perform other field-operations and outage-response duties necessary to support USMEPCOM mission requirements.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
Candidates must meet all of the following requirements:
- Active Secret clearance or higher.
- Bachelor92s degree in information technology, computer science, or a related field.
- Six or more years of experience supporting enterprise information technology operations.
- At least two years of experience leading technical teams or coordinating outage-response activities.
- Experience coordinating technician assignments, operational schedules, incident response, or field-support activities.
- Experience working with enterprise network, systems, telecommunications, or infrastructure support teams.
- Ability to coordinate multiple technical teams and service providers during time-sensitive operational events.
- Ability to develop clear incident documentation, operational updates, and technical status reports.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively during critical incidents.
- Ability to participate in an on-call operational environment and support incident response outside normal business hours when required.
- Ability to travel to USMEPCOM Headquarters and geographically dispersed MEPS locations when required.
Preferred Qualifications
The following qualifications are preferred but are not required:
- ITIL v4 Foundation certification.
- Cisco Certified Network Associate certification.
- CompTIA Network+ certification.
- Experience supporting federal or Department of Defense enterprise IT environments.
- Experience coordinating 24/7/365 outage-response or network-operations coverage.
- Experience supporting SEV 1 and SEV 2 incident response, escalation, communications, and service restoration.
- Experience coordinating geographically dispersed technical teams.
- Experience working with a Service Desk, Network Operations Center, or Outage Response Team.
- Familiarity with ServiceNow or another IT service-management and ticketing platform.
- Experience coordinating telecommunications carriers, utilities, equipment vendors, and external service providers.
- Experience supporting site relocations, technology refreshes, equipment installations, or network cutovers.
- Knowledge of structured cabling, network racks, patch panels, copper cabling, fiber-optic cabling, and related telecommunications components.
- Experience supporting incident reports, root-cause analyses, corrective actions, and after-action reviews.
- Familiarity with ITIL incident, problem, change, service-level, and continual-improvement practices.
Skills and Competencies
- Technical-team leadership and personnel coordination.
- Critical incident and outage-response coordination.
- Technician scheduling, dispatch, and workload management.
- Calm and effective decision-making during high-severity incidents.
- Strong stakeholder and service-provider coordination skills.
- Clear, timely, and audience-appropriate status communication.
- Accurate incident documentation and timeline management.
- Ability to balance planned field activities with urgent operational requirements.
- Strong organizational, analytical, and problem-solving abilities.
- Ability to operate effectively across remote and geographically dispersed teams.
- High attention to detail and consistent follow-through.
- Commitment to mission readiness, service restoration, and continual improvement.
