ResponsibilitiesOur First Responder Solutions program is seeking a System/Network Administrator to enlarge our team responsible for supporting the California Dept of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The System/Network Administrator is the hands-on technical practitioner responsible for the day-to-day configuration, maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshooting of the CAL FIRE CAD network infrastructure. This role is essential during the Knowledge Transfer and Onboarding and Technical Enhancements and Infrastructure Transition phases and becomes the operational backbone of the engagement during the Operations Support phase.
Key Responsibilities
- Administer, configure, and maintain all network infrastructure components supporting the CAL FIRE CAD environment, including routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, and wireless access points.
- Execute network changes, upgrades, and enhancements in accordance with approved change management procedures, ensuring zero disruption to dispatch operations.
- Monitor network performance, availability, and security using enterprise monitoring tools (e.g., SolarWinds, PRTG, Nagios, or equivalent); respond to and resolve alerts in accordance with defined SLAs.
- Participate actively in the Knowledge Transfer phase, shadowing CAL FIRE network staff, documenting configurations, and building runbooks and standard operating procedures.
- Support the Technology Assessment by conducting network audits, capturing device inventories, and validating architecture documentation against physical and logical configurations.
- Perform system administration tasks for servers and infrastructure supporting the CAD environment, including OS patching, backup management, and performance tuning.
- Implement and maintain network security controls including ACLs, firewall rule sets, VPN configurations, and intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS).
- Respond to and resolve network incidents and service requests, maintaining detailed records in the ITSM ticketing system.
- Support disaster recovery and business continuity testing, including failover validation for CAD-critical network paths.
- Maintain accurate and up-to-date network documentation including topology diagrams, IP address management (IPAM) records, and configuration baselines.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Computer Science, Network Engineering, or a related field with 5 years’ experience.
- Minimum 5 years of hands-on network and systems administration experience, with at least 2 years in public safety, government, or critical infrastructure environment.
- Must be a US Citizen.
- Cisco CCNA required certification.
- Proficiency with Cisco IOS/IOS-XE, routing protocols (OSPF, BGP, EIGRP), switching (STP, VLANs, trunking), and firewall platforms (Cisco ASA/FTD, Palo Alto, or Fortinet).
- Solid understanding of TCP/IP networking, DNS, DHCP, QoS, and network security fundamentals.
- Experience with ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, Remedy) and change management processes in a regulated environment.
- Working knowledge of Windows Server and Linux administration in a networked environment.
- Ability to work on-call rotations and respond to after-hours incidents as required by operational SLAs.
Preferred Qualifications
- CCNP (Routing & Switching or Enterprise) strongly preferred. CompTIA Network+ and/or Security+ a plus.
- Familiarity with CAD system network requirements, including low-latency design, redundancy, and integration with radio/telephony systems preferred.
- Experience with SD-WAN platforms (Cisco Viptela, VMware VeloCloud, or equivalent) preferred.
Target Salary Range$86,000 - $138,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.
