Network Engineering Lead

Strategic Growth Partners•Washington, DC

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Strategic Growth Partners provides operations and strategic support to commercial organizations. Its client is a leading global professional services firm whose Corporate Performance Improvement practice helps organizations address complex business issues, maximize stakeholder value, and deliver sustainable change. The practice is seeking a Network Engineering Lead to drive large-scale network assessment, consolidation, and transformation for clients with complex, globally distributed infrastructure, including federal and defense networks. The role calls for experience redesigning enterprise network architectures at scale, rather than only operating existing networks. The lead will assess and design enterprise network architectures, including WAN/LAN, SD-WAN, SASE, hybrid and multi-cloud, security, and classified environments. The work also encompasses telecom expense management, circuit inventory and bill reconciliation, legacy circuit retirement, carrier coordination, and program execution. The position supports broader engagement delivery and practice development through training, content creation, and people development. The role is hybrid and involves travel of up to 80%. Full-time employment. An active Secret clearance is required; active TS/SCI or eligibility is strongly preferred. U.S. citizenship and residency are required. Compensation is an hourly rate, DOE.

Requirements

At least 12 years of professional experience in network architecture for complex, large enterprises, including consulting or advisory delivery experience.
Demonstrated experience leading network consolidation, efficiency, performance improvement, or transformation programs.
Demonstrated Telecom Expense Management experience, including reconciling carrier bills to a circuit inventory.
Bachelor's degree.
Active Secret clearance.
U.S. citizenship and residency.
Ability to travel up to 80%.
Experience designing and implementing large-scale network transformations, rather than only operating existing networks.
Experience with WAN and LAN architecture; SD-WAN design and implementation; SASE deployment; carrier-class transport networks; and TDM-to-IP/Ethernet migration.
Experience with legacy circuit optimization, bandwidth and latency analysis, network cost modeling, circuit-level inventory, and retirement of legacy TDM circuits.
Ability to maintain detailed circuit inventories and reconcile carrier invoices line by line, identifying billing errors, disputes, credits, unused circuits, and rate or term variances.
Experience with network security architecture, including micro-segmentation, Zero Trust networking, and perimeter modernization.
Experience with multi-classification network environments and cross-domain solution architectures.
Competency with AI-assisted tools and ability to explain how AI accelerates network analysis and operations.
Experience negotiating with carriers and general understanding of commercial models and contracts.
Experience designing highly available hybrid network infrastructure, including active-active failover across on-premises and cloud environments, sub-second recovery mechanisms, and multi-region and multi-availability-zone redundancy.
Experience executing circuit-by-circuit cutover and retirement programs, tracking owners, dependencies, and risks, and coordinating providers and vendors.
Ability to rapidly assess an in-flight program's leadership, resources, financials, schedule, and obstacles.

Nice To Haves

Active TS/SCI clearance or eligibility.
Direct experience with DoD network environments, such as DISN, and government telecommunications policies such as DoDI 8010.01.
Federal or DoD network environment experience; deep transformation experience in regulated industries such as financial services or healthcare may substitute.
CCIE, CCNP, or equivalent certifications.
Experience with SATCOM, wireless integration, and tactical or edge network design.

Responsibilities

Lead network architecture and engineering assessments, including topology analysis, bandwidth and latency optimization, cost modeling, and roadmap development.
Design SD-WAN and SASE target architectures that support hybrid and multi-cloud workloads across classification levels.
Assess Zero Trust network readiness and develop implementation roadmaps aligned with compliance timelines.
Evaluate dependencies between network modernization and cloud migration sequencing.
Read out in-flight network programs, such as TDM circuit retirement or DoDNet migration, and identify remaining work, obstacles, and opportunities for engagement support.
Deploy and run a rapid-response SWAT team to retire legacy circuits and accelerate migration, using circuit-level tracking and provider coordination.
Build and maintain a circuit-by-circuit inventory using carrier, contract, and network sources, including circuit ID, type, bandwidth, A/Z locations, carrier, terms, and costs.
Reconcile carrier bills against the circuit inventory and apply Telecom Expense Management disciplines to identify savings, billing errors, and circuits to retire.
Integrate findings into the broader engagement scope and deliverables.
Support practice development through internal training, content creation, and people development.