Network Engineering Lead (Senior)

DecisionPoint | Cortek•Chicago, IL

10d•Hybrid

About The Position

DecisionPoint seeks a Senior Network Engineering Lead to provide engineering leadership and technical support for USMEPCOM enterprise network infrastructure under the ENLIST program. The role supports the design, integration, configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, and modernization of WAN, LAN, circuit, SD-WAN, wireless, and cloud-connectivity environments. It provides senior technical leadership for routers, switches, firewalls, circuits, wireless controllers, access points, cloud connectivity, network-monitoring platforms, and related infrastructure. The position also supports outage response, connectivity for remote locations, site surveys, wireless coverage analysis, cable-management planning, technical documentation, and coordination with DISA, Government service providers, commercial carriers, and equipment vendors. It is a hybrid position based in N. Chicago, Illinois. After-hours availability may be required during outages, implementations, maintenance windows, or other mission-critical activities. Applicants acknowledge and consent to having their resumes included in an active competitive government contract bid.

Requirements

Active Secret clearance or higher.
Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Networking, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
Minimum of 8 years of relevant network engineering, network architecture, network administration, or enterprise infrastructure experience.
Current Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification.
Ability to work a hybrid schedule in N. Chicago, Illinois.

Nice To Haves

CCNP Enterprise, CCNP Security, or another CCNP specialization directly related to the supported environment.
Experience leading network-engineering activities in a federal or Department of Defense environment.
Advanced experience designing, configuring, and troubleshooting enterprise WAN, LAN, and SD-WAN environments.
Advanced knowledge of EIGRP, OSPF, BGP, VLANs, virtual routing, subnetting, access-control lists, and Quality of Service.
Experience with Cisco routers, switches, firewalls, wireless controllers, access points, and network-management platforms.
Experience ordering, installing, activating, monitoring, and troubleshooting Government and commercial network circuits.
Experience coordinating circuit and connectivity services with DISA, telecommunications carriers, ISPs, and local IT service providers.
Experience designing and troubleshooting secure connectivity between cloud environments and Government networks.
Experience performing wireless surveys, heat-map analysis, coverage optimization, capacity analysis, and access-point placement.
Experience supporting VPNs, firewalls, load balancers, DNS, network appliances, and cloud-networking technologies.
Experience with enterprise network-monitoring, performance-management, configuration-management, and observability tools.
Experience supporting network-related outage response, service restoration, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action tracking.
Experience applying DISA STIGs and supporting DoD RMF, ATO, IAVA, CND Directive, and POA&M requirements.
Experience developing network diagrams, as-built documentation, rack layouts, site surveys, implementation plans, and technical concepts of operations.
Familiarity with structured cabling, network racks, patch panels, inside-plant infrastructure, fiber, and network-drop planning.
Additional certifications such as CompTIA Security+, CompTIA Network+, Cisco Certified Design Expert, Certified Wireless Network Professional, AWS Advanced Networking, or equivalent credentials.
ITIL Foundation or higher certification.
Strong technical leadership, analytical, troubleshooting, documentation, vendor-management, and stakeholder-communication skills.
Ability to coordinate multiple engineering, implementation, outage, vendor, and remote-site activities simultaneously.

Responsibilities

Lead engineering support for USMEPCOM WAN, LAN, SD-WAN, circuit, wireless, cloud-connectivity, and network-management environments.
Plan network architecture; integrate, implement, analyze, troubleshoot, and optimize network performance.
Gather, analyze, document, and validate technical and operational network requirements.
Establish technical priorities, develop implementation schedules, estimate rough-order costs, and prepare high-level concepts of operations.
Design, configure, manage, and troubleshoot EIGRP, OSPF, and BGP routing protocols.
Configure and support routers, switches, firewalls, virtual routing, subinterfaces, VLAN routing, and Quality of Service policies.
Support ordering, installation, activation, migration, monitoring, and troubleshooting of network circuits.
Coordinate circuit installation and connectivity with Government personnel, DISA, telecommunications carriers, commercial vendors, and local service providers.
Monitor circuit status, availability, uptime, utilization, latency, packet loss, and network traffic.
Proactively identify and resolve network issues to improve availability, performance, resilience, and capacity.
Install, refresh, configure, and troubleshoot SD-WAN devices and associated network services.
Support cloud connectivity and secure integration between cloud services and Government networks.
Configure, integrate, and maintain wireless controllers and access points.
Perform wireless coverage and performance analysis using heat maps, surveys, monitoring data, and other approved tools.
Identify wireless coverage gaps, interference, capacity constraints, and access-point placement issues and recommend corrective actions.
Ensure network devices are securely configured, tested, and approved before connection to LAN and WAN environments.
Coordinate device operating-system updates, firmware upgrades, vendor and security patches, and configuration changes.
Support implementation of applicable DISA Security Technical Implementation Guides and approved network-security configurations.
Develop and operate network-monitoring and management capabilities for availability, capacity, fault, and performance management.
Monitor network, computing, and storage resource utilization and recommend actions to address capacity shortfalls.
Troubleshoot complex connectivity, routing, performance, configuration, wireless, circuit, VPN, firewall, and cloud-integration issues.
Coordinate with external service providers to resolve issues beyond USMEPCOM-controlled LAN boundaries.
Support remote MEPS, Recruiting Processing Stations, virtual MEPS, and other remote locations with WAN, circuit, firewall, VPN, ISP, and cloud-connectivity issues.
Support the Outage Response Team during network incidents, performance degradation, and service outages; provide diagnosis, restoration recommendations, workarounds, root-cause input, and corrective-action support.
Coordinate vendor escalation, maintenance, support, equipment refreshes, quotes, best-practice reviews, and replacement of failed network devices.
Support planning for network cabling, racks, patch panels, network drops, and related physical infrastructure.
Conduct or support site surveys and develop network-drop requirements, installation estimates, and physical inside-plant documentation.
Maintain network diagrams, as-built drawings, schematics, rack layouts, equipment inventories, interconnection records, and ATO-supporting documentation.
Support network-equipment relocation and installation for new or relocated MEPS facilities.
Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, engineering documentation, lessons learned, and knowledge articles.
Support service design, service transition, change management, configuration management, and modernization activities.
Provide technical mentoring and guidance to network administrators, support specialists, and other infrastructure personnel.