Senior Network Engineer at Cloud Direct

Senior Network Engineer

This is a technical hands-on role which recognises the importance of robust and powerful networking and connectivity solutions as an integral part of our cloud strategy. The role reports to the Head of the Technical Solutions Team. The team is tasked with a wide range of customer and solution engagements including technical vendor relationships, customer pre-sales, solution design & delivery, project handover into our Managed Service Support Teams, and on-going proactive technical management of both cloud and local/hybrid infrastructure.

Responsibilities:

• Liaise and work with key vendor partners to ensure you remain up to date with relevant networking and connectivity technologies.
• Be the ‘go-to’ person for technical queries regarding complex network and connectivity issues.
• Work closely with other customer-facing teams in the business. This will include Pre-Sales assignments (with Sales Specialists, Account Managers and Technical AMs); Solution Design (e.g. working with Professional Services Teams); Package Design (with Marketing); as well as upgrades, and migrations
• Based on your designs, deliver customer solutions to agreed timescales, quality, and budget operating with a high degree of technical autonomy and self-administered technical project management.
• Proactively train other technical teams and Support personnel in your areas of responsibility to drive the clear separation of the customer Support function distinct from the Technical Solutions Team.
• Be a point of technical excellence and final escalation for critical problems within your technology focus, engaging with vendors for troubleshooting where required.
• Provide proactive technical management for specific environments thereby ensuring platforms are highly-available, feature adequate capacity, remain up to date and highly secure.
• Support the company’s transition to cloud-based offerings and closer working relationships with specialist partners through hands-on project work to rationalise and reduce direct infrastructure across all platforms.
• Be a team player, willing to share knowledge and experience with others to ensure no single point of failure exists within the team.
• Produce regular time, progress, and KPI reporting in line with company standards in order to track the effectiveness of your work and engagements.
• Be required to carry out such alternative or additional duties as the company may from time to time reasonably require. E.g. take part in out-of-hours escalation process for critical Incidents.
• Maintaining up-to-date knowledge on VoIP technologies & features as well as potential integration and added value with other services. Using this knowledge to facilitate or unblock delays in progress of issue resolution & project development as well as defining road-maps and upgrade paths for these services.

Skills and experience required:

• Deep working knowledge of networking principles and technologies, ideally with specific experience of Cloud Direct’s core MPLS technologies and associated infrastructure. To include:
  • Centralised monitoring and management in large-scale, high-availability environments;
  • Advanced knowledge of large scale LAN/WAN switching and routing implementation and operation with specific knowledge of VLAN, VPN and MPLS networking;
  • Knowledge of QoS and LAN traffic management techniques;
  • Thorough knowledge of IT infrastructure, TCP/IP, networking and information system security principles, practices and technologies;
  • Understanding of core Internet routing protocols and services such as BGP, OSPF and EIGRP;
  • Understanding of networking services such as GRE, IPSEC, L2TP, QOS, HSRP, VRRP, GLBP, DHCP, NTP and NAT (amongst others)
  • Understanding of switching services such as (but not limited to) STP, VLAN, QinQ, COS, UDLD, Switch Stacking, PagP, LACP and RSPAN
  • Knowledge of intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention system technology;
  • Hands experience with Firewall technologies, in particular the CISCO based product range. Experience in other vendors is desirable
  • Demonstrable; in-depth technical expertise within an ICT environment consisting of extensive hands-on support and management of Telephony (VoIP) and Networks.
  • Design; configuration and deployment experience of Telephony (VoIP) and Networks.
  • Understanding of client access technologies such as Fibre, FTTC, EFM, DSL and 3/4G
  • SBC and VOIP Infrastructure
• Proven problem-solving capabilities to see round and through highly technical issues.
• Good analytical skills with the ability to document and present highly technical information in a coherent and informative manner.
• Commercially astute and able to interpret complex business cost models to make informed decisions and recommendations.
• Confident in customer-facing pre-sales environments with the ability to think on your feet and to ensure positive and engaging customer communications.
• Be resilient, tenacious, and able to handle pressure around multiple tight delivery schedules and demanding customer situations, whilst also maintaining a positive, can-do attitude and a constructive approach to overcome challenges.
• The ability to handle a high degree of change.
• A grounding in project management principles and first-hand experience of delivering many technical projects.
• A solid grounding in basic server and IT infrastructure and operating systems.
• Proven ability of establishing, maintaining, securing, and upgrading of networks.

Qualifications and experience required / highly desirable

• Strong academic background – ideally with a technical degree.
• At least five years professional experience in network engineering in a large and complex network environment. These should include several years of hands-on configuration, administration and troubleshooting experience of LAN switches, routers and firewall devices.
• Accreditations in related network and infrastructure technologies (e.g. Microsoft networking exams, CCNA, CCNP, Fortinet NSE, etc.)

What do we offer you?

• Pension contribution
• Health care cash plan
• Birthday lunches
• Fun Fund
• Many more

This is the perfect opportunity for ambitious individuals to develop their careers with a leading company in the transformational cloud computing industry.