Principal Network Engineer - Routing and Switching

Global Enterprise Services•Fort Meade, MD

8d•Onsite

About The Position

GES is seeking a Principal Network Engineer specializing in routing and switching to serve as the senior technical authority for the routed and switched enterprise. The position advances network innovation through strategic design and implementation efforts that improve network security, scalability, resiliency, and performance. It provides engineering support across network planning, design, evaluation, and infrastructure installation, modification, testing, and servicing. The engineer specifies network architecture, evaluates and recommends technologies, and conducts needs assessments to guide design and investment decisions. The successful candidate owns enterprise routing and switching architecture and sets standards and technical direction across the enterprise. The role leads strategic engineering projects from concept through implementation and operations transition, serves as the final technical escalation point for complex issues, and directs and mentors other technical staff. It also develops and maintains engineering and operational documentation and communicates architecture recommendations, plans, risks, dependencies, and status to technical leadership, stakeholders, and approval boards. The position requires five days in the office until acclimated, after which one remote day may be possible. An active Secret clearance is required.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience and 12 or more years of prior relevant experience, or a master's degree and 10 or more years of experience; specific experience, education, and training may be considered in lieu of a degree.
Expert-level hands-on experience designing, engineering, and troubleshooting enterprise routing and switching infrastructure in large, complex environments.
Deep knowledge of TCP/IP, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, route policy and redistribution, VLANs, spanning tree, link aggregation, VRFs, MPLS, multicast, QoS, NAT, and high-availability design.
Experience evaluating enterprise network architectures and developing improvement plans across LAN, WAN, WLAN, routing, switching, firewalls, VPN, proxies, software-defined networking, and cloud-connected environments.
Experience leading network engineering projects from planning through implementation, including requirements analysis, dependency management, risk reduction, contingency planning, execution oversight, validation, and operational transition.
Experience serving as a senior technical lead directing the work of other network engineers, administrators, or analysts.
Hands-on experience with at least two of these network technologies: Cisco, Aruba, Palo Alto, Dell, Infoblox, and Brocade.
Experience documenting logical and physical network designs, implementation plans, risks, dependencies, decision points, and technical recommendations using Visio, PowerPoint, Cameo, or similar tools.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting architecture recommendations, implementation plans, risks, and status to technical leadership, stakeholders, and approval boards.
Current IAT Level II or higher certification, such as Security+ or CISSP.
Active DoD Secret clearance.

Nice To Haves

Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Enterprise, CCIE, or equivalent certification.
Experience leading enterprise network innovation efforts such as segmentation, enterprise Wi-Fi modernization, IPv6 transition, automation, SDN, cloud connectivity, zero-trust-aligned networking, or security stack modernization.
Experience with SD-WAN, SD-Access, Cisco Catalyst Center (DNA Center), or similar controller-based network architectures.
Experience with network automation and infrastructure-as-code using Python, Ansible, REST APIs, or similar.
Experience integrating enterprise networking with cloud infrastructure, including hybrid connectivity, cloud routing, and secure interconnects.
Experience developing repeatable engineering execution frameworks, implementation playbooks, migration runbooks, technical standards, and risk-reduction processes.
Experience with Jira, Confluence, or other project and knowledge-management tools used to coordinate technical work across distributed engineering teams.
Understanding of Federal Government application, server, and network security requirements such as NIST, FedRAMP, FISMA, RMF, and DoD cybersecurity requirements.

Responsibilities

Own enterprise routing and switching architecture, including core, distribution, access, WAN edge, and data center interconnect designs.
Define routing architecture and policy standards for BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, and static routing, including addressing, filtering, summarization, path selection, redistribution boundaries, and convergence targets.
Define Layer 2 and high-availability architecture, including VLANs, spanning tree, link aggregation, redundancy, VRF and segmentation, multicast, and QoS policies.
Evaluate current network architecture, identify gaps and improvement opportunities, estimate effort, assess risk, and develop practical engineering plans.
Specify network architecture, evaluate and recommend emerging technologies, and conduct needs assessments to inform design and investment decisions.
Establish and enforce configuration standards, design patterns, and technical baselines.
Drive strategic engineering projects from concept through implementation, including architecture evaluation, requirements analysis, dependency identification, design coordination, planning, execution, validation, and operations transition.
Develop and manage implementation plans, schedules, cutover strategies, contingency plans, rollback procedures, validation steps, stakeholder communications, and change documentation for mission-critical changes.
Lead modernization efforts involving segmentation, IPv4/IPv6 transition, network optimization, connectivity consolidation, lifecycle replacement, automation, and software-defined networking.
Coordinate change windows, maintenance activities, test validation, and rollback procedures for high-impact network activities.
Partner with architecture, cybersecurity, operations, project management, and technical SME teams to resolve blockers, manage dependencies, and reduce delivery risk.
Serve as the final technical escalation point for complex routing, switching, transport, and performance issues across domains and vendors.
Provide technical direction, mentoring, and day-to-day guidance to network engineers, administrators, and analysts; review designs and implementation work.
Organize technical priorities, track concurrent efforts, manage competing demands, and maintain accountability against schedules.
Improve engineering processes, documentation standards, implementation playbooks, migration runbooks, technical standards, and execution models.
Develop and maintain logical and physical network designs, architecture diagrams, routing policies and addressing plans, configuration standards, implementation and cutover plans, test plans, risk and dependency registers, decision records, technical standards, playbooks, runbooks, and as-built and operations-transition documentation.
Present architecture recommendations, implementation plans, risks, dependencies, and status to technical leadership, stakeholders, and approval boards, and build consensus around technical approaches.