Job DescriptionDescription The Lead Network Engineer will take ownership of the design, deployment, and operation of multi-cloud network infrastructures spanning platforms such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Amazon Cloud (AWS), and Microsoft Azure. This role will ensure seamless connectivity, high performance, and strong security across multi-cloud and hybrid IT environments. With an emphasis on operational excellence, collaborative leadership, and customer-facing problem-solving, the Lead Network Engineer will lead a team to deliver scalable, compliant, and innovative solutions tailored to organizational and customer needs.
Key Responsibilities: - As the Lead Network Engineer, you will leverage your expertise in cloud-native networking technologies, protocols, and services to accomplish the following:
- Architect, deploy, and maintain robust multi-cloud network infrastructure, ensuring connectivity between platforms such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI.
- Design and implement advanced features such as Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), hybrid connectivity using VPN and dedicated interconnects, cloud routing, and peering configurations across platforms.
- Leverage advanced network topologies to optimize latency, throughput, and resilience in cloud environments.
- Oversee cloud network segmentation strategies, including advanced usage of subnets, transit gateways, and virtual network appliances to meet performance and security requirements.
- Design and manage secure cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premises connectivity, including AWS Transit Gateway, Azure Virtual WAN, or OCI FastConnect architectures.
- Oversee deployment of software-defined networking (SDN) configurations, ensuring scalability and policy-driven automation for cloud networking.
- Automate hybrid cloud infrastructure deployments through Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), leveraging tools such as Terraform to efficiently provision resources like security groups, load balancers, and virtual private gateways.
- Design and implement cloud-native load balancing solutions, such as GCP's HTTPS Load Balancers, OCI's Load Balancer, Azure Application Gateway, or AWS Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs), ensuring high availability and performance.
- Configure modern identity and access controls (e.g., IAM policies for per-resource networking rules) to ensure that network infrastructure aligns with zero-trust security principles.
- Implement cloud network firewalls, such as Palo Alto VM-Series, native AWS Network Firewalls, Azure Firewall, OCI Network Firewall, or GCP Cloud Firewalls, to secure traffic at every layer.
- Design and enforce cloud-specific security best practices, including encryption of data in transit, secure API management, and IAM monitoring to prevent unauthorized access.
- Lead audits and ensure compliance with DoD STIGs, organizational security mandates, and cybersecurity frameworks (e.g., IA Vulnerability Management).
- Lead and mentor a growing team of cloud network engineers, providing technical guidance, project management, and career development opportunities.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams (security, DevOps, architecture) to implement scalable cloud solutions while fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.
- Define and drive strategic initiatives for cloud-first network architectures, ensuring alignment with rapidly evolving business and technical requirements.
- Act as the trusted technical advisor for cloud networking issues, stepping in as the subject matter expert during escalations.
- Proactively monitor cloud network health metrics, leverage telemetry and observability tools (e.g., GCP Monitoring, OCI Observability, and AWS CloudWatch) for early detection of issues and define capacity planning benchmarks.
- Partner with the cloud operations team to deliver robust disaster recovery solutions and high-availability designs for mission-critical systems.
- Execute lifecycle management activities, including firewall rule updates, patch rollouts, and resource optimizations, with minimal downtime.
- Resolve intricate issues with advanced diagnostic tools (NetFlow analysis, packet captures, and cloud-native traffic analyzers, such as VPC Flow Logs).
Qualifications Required Qualifications:- BS and 9+ years of enterprise network engineering experience with at least 3-5 years in leading cloud-native network architectures (4 years in lieu of degree).
- Ideal candidates will have extensive hands-on expertise in cloud networking coupled with leadership experience in driving large-scale, secure network deployments.
- Expertise in multi-cloud networking (AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI) and hybrid designs connecting on-prem and cloud resources. Our customers operate in the cloud, but we assist with network connections for their existing on-prem interconnects.
- In-depth knowledge of TCP/IP stack, DNS architectures, BGP configurations, NSGs, and FWaaS (Firewall-as-a-Service).
- Demonstrated experience with cloud-native connectivity patterns, such as inter-region peering, global VPCs, SD-WAN for cloud, and transit connectivity hubs.
- Proven track record of mentoring, growing, and leading teams of 6gt;= 5 engineers.
- Experience communicating complex cloud-networking designs to directors and stakeholders.
- Hands-on skills with Terraform or similar IaC tools for network automation.
- Proficiency with cloud monitoring platforms such as AWS CloudWatch, Datadog, or GCP Monitoring for observability.
- Certifications:
- Required: AWS Cloud Practitioner, Microsoft Certified Azure Fundamentals.
- Preferred: AWS Advanced Networking, Palo Alto Networks PCNSE, or Google Cloud Network Engineer.
- Participation in 24/7 on-call rotations as the escalation point for critical network issues.
- Must be comfortable leading technical initiatives with strict DoD STIG compliance and ensuring Public Trust clearance requirements are met.
Target salary range: $120,001 - $160,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.
Overview SAIC accepts applications on an ongoing basis and there is no deadline.
