Manager, Network Engineering (L2/L3)

Tract Capital Management•Seattle, CO

About The Position

The Manager, Network Engineering leads the active network engineering discipline within Tract Capital’s Site Communications & Network Infrastructure organization. This player-coach role owns pre-construction design and construction-phase delivery of Layer 2 and Layer 3 network infrastructure across the company’s data center campuses, including campus LAN and EVPN/VXLAN fabric, routing and addressing, segmentation, SD-WAN and WAN edge, firewalls, metro and carrier connectivity, VPNs, mesh Wi-Fi, Private 5G, and the OT network layer supporting facilities and security systems. The role also owns campus network standards, policy, performance-monitoring definitions, and as-built records. Reporting to the VP, Site Communications & Network Infrastructure, the Manager leads a team of three specialists: the Senior Network Engineer, the Wireless & Private 5G Engineer, and the Network Commissioning Technician. The role partners closely with the peer Managers of Inside Plant and Outside Plant Engineering to coordinate the active network layer with the physical plant, and works with the Network Operations Center and Operations leadership to establish turnover requirements and hand over commissioned environments. This is a Design & Build position; 24×7 monitoring, incident response, and moves/adds/changes belong to the separate Daily Operations organization. The Manager sets direction and standards while maintaining hands-on depth in IP networking and network security, coordinating specialist expertise and holding vendors accountable for quality and schedule. The position is based in Denver, Colorado, or Seattle, Washington, and includes periodic field/site work and commissioning support.

Requirements

At least 10 years of network engineering experience in L2/L3 design, routing and switching, network security, and build delivery, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Substantial data center experience delivering networks in data center, colocation, or mission-critical facilities; exclusively enterprise/corporate IT experience is not a fit.
At least 3 years of direct experience managing and developing a small technical team, in addition to leading integrators, vendors, and infrastructure delivery projects.
Deep, hands-on IP routing and switching expertise, including VLANs and trunking, link aggregation, first-hop redundancy, VRFs and route policy, IP addressing, and dynamic routing protocols such as OSPF, BGP, or IS-IS.
Hands-on experience designing, deploying, and troubleshooting production leaf-spine EVPN/VXLAN fabrics, including underlay and overlay design, VNI and tenant segmentation, and data center multi-tenancy.
Deep hands-on experience with secure connectivity and network security enforcement, including IPsec/IKEv2 VPNs, tunnel redundancy and failover, crypto and key management, MTU/performance tuning, next-generation firewalls, micro-segmentation, policy design, and out-of-band management.
OT networking experience designing segmented networks for BMS, SCADA/EPMS, DCIM, access control, and industrial control systems, with working knowledge of protocols such as Modbus TCP/RTU, BACnet/IP, DNP3, and OPC UA.
Experience evaluating metro connectivity and carrier DIA, comparing transport options, assessing route and path diversity, and defining availability, latency, capacity, and SLA requirements; experience with SD-WAN, carrier hand-off, and sufficient enterprise wireless familiarity to set acceptance criteria.
Experience authoring and enforcing network standards, policies, and configuration baselines, and defining performance monitoring, metrics, thresholds, alerting, and telemetry.
Working fluency with the physical layer, including structured cabling, MDF/IDF and rack elevations, fiber pathways, and entrance facilities.
Strong vendor and integrator management skills, clear communication with internal stakeholders, and proficiency with common design and documentation tools such as Visio, AutoCAD, IPAM/DDI, and configuration management tooling.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Telecommunications, Information Technology, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
Valid driver’s license for periodic field/site work and commissioning support.

Nice To Haves

CCNP Enterprise or an equivalent professional-level routing/switching certification, or progress toward it.
Network security certifications such as Palo Alto PCNSE, Fortinet NSE, or CCNP Security.
OT/ICS credentials such as ISA/IEC 62443 or GICSP.
PMP or wireless certifications such as CWNA or CWDP.
Hands-on experience with Arista switching and Arista CloudVision for provisioning, configuration compliance, change control, and network telemetry.
Experience delivering network infrastructure for hyperscale or cloud campuses or large capital projects across multiple concurrent greenfield and live/retrofit sites.
Experience designing OT network segmentation to a recognized framework such as the Purdue model, ISA/IEC 62443, or NIST SP 800-82.
Experience with network automation and infrastructure-as-code approaches such as Ansible, Python, or Git-based configuration management, and with monitoring/observability platforms.
Experience establishing network standards, SOPs, and QA/QC programs in a fast-growth organization and driving commissioning turnover into a 24×7 NOC.

Responsibilities

Lead, manage, and develop a team of three specialists, including hiring, goal-setting, performance management, work allocation, and cross-coverage planning.
Own the Network Engineering function from pre-construction design through commissioning and as-built turnover, covering campus LAN, leaf-spine EVPN/VXLAN, routing and addressing, VLAN and VRF segmentation, SD-WAN, WAN edge, firewalls, and network services.
Design and validate site-to-site VPN and encrypted interconnect architecture for campuses, remote facilities, vendor support paths, and OT remote access, including redundancy, key management, and performance tuning.
Establish and govern network standards and policies, including reference architectures, configuration and hardening standards, addressing and naming conventions, security policy, acceptance criteria, exceptions, and revision control.
Design the OT/ICS network layer with Facilities, Controls, and OT Cybersecurity, including segmentation, security controls, and support for industrial protocols.
Oversee mesh Wi-Fi and Private 5G design and integration with the core L2/L3 and security architecture.
Review integrator deliverables for accuracy and standards compliance; manage vendor delivery quality and schedule; and ensure site acceptance testing meets requirements.
Define campus network performance-monitoring standards, including instrumentation, metrics, thresholds, and telemetry collection.
Collaborate with the Network Operations Center and Operations leadership to define turnover requirements and hand off commissioned environments, including configuration baselines, monitoring onboarding, escalation paths, runbooks, and readiness reviews.
Coordinate continuously with Inside Plant and Outside Plant Engineering to align network design with cabling, MDF/IDF and rack layouts, capacity, pathways, and fiber routes, and to sequence integrated commissioning.
Evaluate and specify metro connectivity and carrier direct internet access, including transport options, path diversity, capacity, hand-off architecture, service requirements, and turn-up validation.