Network Engineer - Senior (Top Secret Clearance Required)

i3 • Chantilly, VA

2d

About The Position

This role leads the design, implementation, and optimization of resilient, secure network infrastructures supporting mission-critical operations. The SME provides strategic and technical leadership in network modernization, security architecture, and performance optimization while ensuring secure and reliable communications across complex, multi-enclave environments.

Requirements

• Bachelors required
• Minimum 8 years experience
• Extensive experience designing and supporting enterprise network environments.
• Strong expertise in routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs, network security, and access control technologies.
• Experience implementing zero-trust architectures and secure communications solutions.
• Advanced troubleshooting and network performance analysis skills.
• Experience supporting mission-critical, highly secure, or regulated environments.
• Strong leadership, communication, and technical documentation skills.
• Networking: Cisco (Switching, Routing, Firewalling, Site-to-site functionality like IPSEC, DMVPN, and SD-WAN), Arista (Switching)
• Tunneling & VPNs: GRE, IPSEC, SSH, SSL, OpenVPN, Wireguard, and specialized multi-tiered applications
• Virtual Distributed Switching: VMWare, Proxmox, and Nutanix
• Solutions & Hardware: Client-Server VPNs, Site-to-site VPNs, and ad-hoc vendors or equipment
• Virtualization / Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: VMWare / Broadcom (ESXi (vSphere), vCenter, VSAN, VxRail, Cluster management, and Licensing), Proxmox (Host and cluster configuration/management, Networking, and Ceph configuration/management), Nutanix (Host and cluster configuration, management with Prism Central, and NDFS configuration/management)
• Large Data Storage Technologies: Hardware/Vendors (QNAP, Synology, TrueNAS, and NetApp), File Transport Protocols (Samba, SSH, SFTP, and NFS)
• Monitoring & Security: Monitoring (Network-based and Host-based collection and monitoring), Alerting & Scanning (Internal and external alerting (including SMTP configuration), and Active vulnerability scanning (such as Nessus)), SIEM (Splunk familiarity)
• System Administration: Operating Systems (Linux (e.g., Rocky, RedHat, Amazon, Ubuntu), Windows, and Mac OS), Identity & Access Management (IPA / FreeIPA, LDAP / OpenLDAP, Keycloak, and Linux-based SSSD host-based access control (HBAC))
• Applications: Splunk, Nginx, Confluence, Jira, Docker, Kubernetes, GitLab, and Jupyter

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Information Technology, Network Engineering, Cybersecurity, or related field.
• Experience supporting federal, defense, intelligence, or classified network environments.
• Expertise with multi-enclave or cross-domain network architectures.
• Experience with cloud networking, software-defined networking (SDN), and hybrid cloud environments.
• Knowledge of security accreditation processes and compliance frameworks.
• Relevant certifications such as CCNP, CCIE, CISSP, JNCIP, JNCIE, AWS Advanced Networking, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement enterprise network architectures that support secure, mission-critical operations.
• Lead zero-trust network design initiatives and cross-enclave interoperability solutions.
• Optimize network performance, reliability, and security across complex, multi-enclave environments.
• Establish and enforce network security architecture standards and governance processes.
• Drive network modernization efforts aligned with enterprise strategy and zero-trust principles.
• Ensure secure communications and connectivity across classified and highly regulated environments.
• Provide technical leadership for network infrastructure planning and implementation.
• Partner with security, architecture, and operations teams to maintain resilient network systems.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior