Job DescriptionCOLSA Corporation is seeking a Network Engineer to support the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC) in Huntsville, AL. This position supports high-performance data center network architecture, deployment, and optimization, bridging traditional enterprise networking and specialized High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments. The role manages the physical and logical pathways that support low-latency fabrics, large-scale virtualization clusters, and high-density AI/ML and compute workloads.
The Network Engineer is responsible for maintaining highly reliable, lossless network performance across multi-vendor leaf-spine topologies and high-throughput data pipelines.
- Fabric Architecture & SDN: Design, deploy, and maintain Cisco ACI environments, including Multi-Pod and Multi-Site configurations, across high-density routing and switching platforms.
- Low-Latency & HPC Connectivity: Engineer and tune InfiniBand and RoCEv2 fabrics to support ultra-low-latency requirements for data-intensive mission workloads.
- Protocol & Routing Management: Configure, audit, and troubleshoot complex BGP, OSPF, and EVPN overlay deployments across multi-vendor infrastructure, including Cisco Nexus, Arista, and NVIDIA/Mellanox.
- Lossless Performance Tuning: Optimize Quality of Service (QoS), Priority Flow Control (PFC), and Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to support lossless traffic flow and consistent network performance.
- Hypervisor & Storage Integration: Integrate network fabrics with virtualization platforms, including VMware NSX, KVM, and Nutanix, and high-speed storage networks such as NVMe-oF to support high-throughput East-West traffic.
- Capacity Planning & Automation: Analyze network telemetry to forecast bandwidth demands for large-scale data ingestion and leverage network automation tools, including Python and Ansible, to enforce configuration consistency and state control.
- Security & Compliance: Ensure network architectures adhere to DoD security baselines, DISA STIGs, and operational security standards required for classified processing environments.
Required ExperienceRequired Qualifications- Bachelor's degree (or higher) in Network Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
- Minimum of 1-12 years of related experience; position may be filled at varying levels based on experience.
- Experience with enterprise and/or data center networking environments.
- Proficiency with high-density switching platforms such as Cisco Nexus, Arista, or NVIDIA.
- Active/current CompTIA Security+ CE, ISC2 SSCP, or equivalent baseline certification.
- Ability to obtain Special Access Program (SAP) eligibility and maintain program access as required.
- U.S. Citizenship required. Must possess, or be able to obtain and maintain, a DoD Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility, including successful completion of a Counterintelligence (CI) Polygraph within 180 days of the start date.
Preferred Qualifications- Data Center Architecture: Experience with spine-leaf data center architectures.
- Security Clearance: Active DoD Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility and a Counterintelligence (CI) Polygraph, with the ability to meet Special Access Program (SAP) eligibility requirements.
- Certifications: CCNA or higher and/or relevant NVIDIA networking certifications.
- HPC Experience: Demonstrated experience with High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters.
- Storage Networking: Knowledge of NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).
- Automation: Ability to manage network state using Ansible, Terraform, or Python.
- Advanced RoCE: Direct experience implementing RoCEv2 in a lossless Ethernet environment using Data Center Bridging (DCB) and Priority Flow Control (PFC).
- Virtualization Experience: Experience with Nutanix, KVM, Citrix, or similar platforms.
Applicant selected will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.
