Dir, Wireline Access & Fiber Systems (HFC, PON, Fiber)

GCI Communication Corp•Anchorage, AK

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

GCI's Dir, Wireline Access & Fiber Systems (HFC, PON, Fiber) will provide technical leadership, engineering governance, and strategic direction for GCI’s wireline access and fiber systems portfolio, including DOCSIS HFC broadband platforms, PON/FTTx access platforms, and supporting fiber systems required to deliver scalable and reliable broadband services. This role is responsible for translating business objectives into clear technical direction, establishing and enforcing engineering standards and architectural governance, and driving technical direction, scalability, lifecycle management, and engineering governance across the broadband access domain, while partnering with operations and delivery teams to improve reliability and operational performance. This role is accountable for domain engineering strategy, standards, architecture, and design governance. Delivery, implementation, and run-state operations are executed in partnership with adjacent functions according to defined accountability, handoff, and escalation models. The Director serves as the primary technical authority for wireline access and fiber systems standards, architecture, and design governance and partners cross-functionally to ensure broadband technologies, designs, and investments align with long-term business, operational, and customer experience objectives. Scope includes, but is not limited to: DOCSIS HFC broadband platforms and chassis systems, PON / EPON / FTTx access platforms, Fiber access systems and associated access-domain infrastructure, End-to-end access-domain solution integration in partnership with transport, IP, and core engineering teams.

Requirements

High School diploma or equivalent.
Bachelors of Science Degree in Engineering, Computer Information Systems or Telecommunications or relevant field.
Minimum twelve (12) years of progressively responsible experience in broadband access, wireline, fiber, or telecommunications engineering environments.
Minimum five (5) years of leadership experience managing technical or engineering teams.
Demonstrated experience with broadband access technologies inclusive of DOCSIS, HFC, PON, EPON, and FTTx environments.
Experience leading engineering governance, architecture standards, and lifecycle management initiatives.
Proficient computer skills and MS Office knowledge (e.g., Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel) to complete job duties effectively, such as using the company intranet and to accurately retrieve and input information into databases or equivalents.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or advanced technical/business degree.
Relevant industry certifications related to broadband, fiber, networking, security, or program management.
Experience within large-scale telecommunications or broadband service provider environments.

Responsibilities

Own the mission, goals, technical direction, and governance outcomes of the team and assigned engineering domain.
Provide strong leadership to span of control (direct and indirect reports); demonstrate effective leadership in all interactions companywide.
Establishing the vision and tone for the department, consistent with company culture and mission.
Establishing clear, measurable, and achievable goals and performance expectations and following up appropriately.
Hiring individuals who can accomplish those goals and meet those expectations; providing them the open communication, training, tools, and mentoring needed to be successful and develop professionally; establishing a development path commensurate with capabilities and potential.
Providing clear and accurate feedback to individuals and teams on a timely and consistent basis.
Identifying and addressing performance problems early and effectively before they damage GCI’s interests and demoralize other employees.
Effectively managing processes including annual performance reviews, compensation adjustments, promotions, demotions, transfers, and disciplinary actions up to and including termination in an unbiased and consistent manner.
Establish, approve, and maintain domain standards, technical policies, reference architectures, and engineering governance requirements.
Define and oversee the Board of Design (BoD) framework, including design review criteria, documentation requirements, and evidence necessary to demonstrate design readiness.
Approve technical designs and solutions prior to execution, ensuring alignment with architectural standards, strategic objectives, operational requirements, and regulatory obligations.
Exercise authority to reject, defer, or require modification of proposed solutions that do not meet established standards or governance requirements, unless an approved exception has been granted through the formal governance process.
Serve as the final technical authority for major architectural decisions, documenting key design choices, risks, assumptions, and trade-offs within the technical decision log.
Govern technical exceptions and waivers, ensuring appropriate review, approval, mitigation planning, and retirement of deviations from approved standards.
Provide technical guidance and decision-making support for complex initiatives, cross-functional programs, and strategic infrastructure investments.
Approve designs for execution readiness; execution teams remain accountable for implementation in accordance with approved design and established change controls.
Partner with Operations and Delivery leaders to resolve design, readiness, and performance issues identified during implementation or run-state operations.
Own technical standards and design acceptance criteria; operational teams own run-state execution and incident response unless otherwise assigned.
Develop and maintain a multi-year engineering roadmap for wireline access and fiber systems aligned with business strategy, capital planning, and operational priorities.
Drive lifecycle management strategy, including platform introduction, modernization, scalability planning, and retirement activities across HFC, PON/FTTx, and supporting fiber technologies.
Evaluate emerging broadband access technologies, vendor capabilities, and industry trends to inform strategic direction and investment decisions.
Provide technical leadership in support of broadband expansion, modernization, and transformation initiatives.
Inform capital planning and investment prioritization for the access and fiber domain.
Evaluate technical tradeoffs, lifecycle cost, scalability, and risk to support portfolio decisions.
Provide domain leadership in support of business case development, modernization sequencing, and investment timing.
Own and maintain domain standards, reference architectures, and the Basis of Design (BoD) framework for the wireline access and fiber systems portfolio.
Establish governance processes that ensure engineering consistency, technical quality, standards adoption, and long-term operational sustainability.
Review and approve engineering designs entering execution; identify and resolve non-compliant or high-risk solutions through governed exception processes.
Maintain technical decision documentation related to architectural standards, engineering tradeoffs, and major platform decisions.
Lead engineering oversight, standards, and readiness activities that enable broadband platform reliability, resiliency, scalability, and performance objectives.
Define and monitor engineering KPIs and operational performance metrics across wireline access and fiber systems.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on service reliability, network optimization, capacity planning, and customer-impacting incident reduction.
Ensure engineering practices comply with applicable regulatory, security, operational, and industry standards.
Partner with Product, Operations, Engineering, QA, PMO, and Delivery teams to ensure broadband solutions are aligned with enterprise strategy and operational objectives.
Translate complex technical concepts into actionable business recommendations for executive and non-technical stakeholders.
Support prioritization, execution readiness, and portfolio alignment across broadband access initiatives.
Facilitate collaboration across architecture, engineering, delivery, and operations teams to ensure clear handoffs, execution readiness, and closed-loop feedback from implementation and run-state operations.
Influence vendor roadmap alignment with enterprise access strategy and lifecycle priorities.
Support make/buy assessments, platform selection, and technical-commercial trade-off discussions.
Evaluate vendors against technical fit, scalability, supportability, and long-term operational impact.