Senior IDC Network Engineer

VSG Business Solutions•Ashburn, VA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior IDC Network Engineer performs hands-on configuration, implementation, troubleshooting, maintenance, and lifecycle support for enterprise routing and switching infrastructure in an onsite Internet Data Center. The primary focus is maintaining reliable Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity, implementing approved network changes, resolving complex incidents, supporting upgrades and migrations, and protecting network availability and performance. The engineer works directly with production routers, switches, interfaces, routing protocols, VLANs, trunks, circuits, and related network services. The role also supports IDC operations, including DCIM data accuracy, rack-level equipment installation, structured cabling, fiber and copper cross-connect coordination, carrier circuit turn-up, technical documentation, vendor coordination, and scheduled maintenance windows. This is a senior, hands-on position rather than a primarily architectural, project-management, or remote-monitoring role. Work is onsite Monday through Friday in a secure Internet Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia. The candidate must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance. Scheduled evening, overnight, or weekend maintenance and on-call support may be required.

Requirements

At least 10 years of hands-on routing and switching experience in enterprise, service-provider, government, or similarly complex production networks.
Demonstrated ability to independently configure, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot production routers and switches.
Strong knowledge of TCP/IP and IPv4 networking; Layer 2 switching, VLANs, trunking, and redundancy; Layer 3 routing and route selection; BGP and OSPF; network segmentation and resilient network design; and network monitoring and diagnostic techniques.
Experience planning and executing production network changes, maintenance activities, upgrades, migrations, and cutovers.
Experience troubleshooting complex connectivity and performance issues across network devices, carrier circuits, and physical infrastructure.
At least three contiguous years of hands-on experience in an IDC or comparable data-center environment.
Practical data-center physical-infrastructure experience, including equipment installation, rack-level work, fiber and copper cabling, patch panels, transceivers, and cross-connects.
Working experience with a DCIM platform, including validating and maintaining equipment, rack, port, cable, or asset records.
Experience with incident, problem, and change-management processes and associated ticket documentation.
Ability to produce accurate network diagrams, configuration records, implementation plans, rollback procedures, and as-built documentation.
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, written-communication, and stakeholder-coordination skills.
Ability to work independently onsite while collaborating effectively with distributed engineering and operations teams.
U.S. citizenship.
Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance.
Ability and willingness to work onsite Monday through Friday in Ashburn, Virginia, for the duration of the engagement.
Ability to support scheduled evening, overnight, or weekend maintenance and participate in an on-call rotation when required.
Ability to safely perform rack-level installation, cabling, equipment inspection, and component replacement, with reasonable accommodation where applicable.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Network Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field; relevant professional experience may substitute for the desired degree.
Current or prior professional-level networking certification, such as CCNP Enterprise, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure, CDCDP, or a comparable advanced routing, switching, or data-center certification.
Cisco routing and switching experience, particularly in enterprise or data-center environments.
Experience with data-center switching platforms, carrier circuits, data-center interconnects, out-of-band management, and redundant network architectures.
Experience coordinating with telecommunications carriers, colocation providers, cabling vendors, and network-equipment manufacturers.
Familiarity with firewalls, VPNs, access-control lists, network-management platforms, and data-center security controls.
Experience supporting network refreshes, migrations, circuit turn-ups, failover exercises, and infrastructure modernization.

Responsibilities

Configure, implement, operate, and troubleshoot enterprise routers and switches in a production IDC environment.
Perform Layer 2 administration, including VLAN changes, access and trunk port configuration, switch-port validation, spanning-tree and loop-prevention troubleshooting, link aggregation, and physical connectivity troubleshooting.
Perform Layer 3 administration, including IP addressing, static and dynamic routing, BGP and OSPF configuration and troubleshooting, route-policy and path-selection troubleshooting, gateway and adjacency validation, failover validation, and VRF or network-segmentation support where applicable.
Diagnose routing, switching, packet-loss, latency, reachability, convergence, interface, and circuit-related problems using command-line, monitoring, logging, and diagnostic tools.
Review configurations, identify operational risks or inconsistencies, and recommend corrective actions.
Develop and execute pre-change checks, implementation steps, rollback procedures, and post-change validation.
Support network moves, adds, changes, migrations, upgrades, hardware refreshes, and decommissioning; install and validate software or firmware upgrades under approved change-management procedures.
Monitor network availability, utilization, error conditions, and performance trends; proactively address potential service impacts.
Support redundancy, resiliency, and failover testing for network paths and critical connectivity.
Maintain network diagrams, configuration records, interface assignments, IP-addressing information, and as-built documentation.
Respond to network incidents and service degradations; perform technical triage, fault isolation, recovery, and escalation.
Lead or contribute to root-cause analysis for recurring or high-impact network issues and document troubleshooting, findings, corrective measures, and resolutions in the ticketing system.
Open, update, monitor, resolve, and close incident, problem, service-request, and change records.
Coordinate implementation schedules, dependencies, maintenance windows, validation activities, and rollback readiness; participate in planned after-hours maintenance when needed.
Work with internal teams, operations personnel, service providers, carriers, and equipment vendors to resolve hardware, software, circuit, and interoperability issues.
Support onsite routers, switches, network-management appliances, and associated data-center connectivity.
Install, rack, cable, power, label, and validate network equipment; replace or upgrade line cards, supervisor modules, power supplies, optics, interface cards, and other field-replaceable components.
Support fiber and copper cross-connects and coordinate circuit extensions, port assignments, optics, demarcation details, patching, and end-to-end connectivity testing.
Verify cable type, endpoints, equipment ports, labels, signal condition, and physical path before service activation; troubleshoot cabling and patching issues with IDC personnel or cabling vendors.
Maintain orderly cable routing, grooming, labeling, and documentation in accordance with IDC standards.
Coordinate onsite vendor access, equipment delivery, installation, replacement, return-material authorization, and technical service actions.
Use the designated DCIM platform as an operational system of record; create, validate, update, and reconcile equipment, rack, asset, port, cabling, cross-connect, and change records against the physical environment.
Update DCIM and as-built records following installations, changes, cable work, moves, replacements, or decommissioning.
Maintain rack elevations, cable schedules, port maps, circuit records, methods of procedure, test results, and operational runbooks.
Collaborate with network, security, server, storage, application, facilities, carrier, and IDC operations teams; communicate issues and provide status updates during incidents, maintenance, circuit implementations, and infrastructure projects.
Support planning and execution for network migrations, equipment refreshes, capacity changes, and data-center initiatives.
Participate in an after-hours or on-call support rotation for critical incidents and scheduled maintenance, as required.
Follow applicable security, access-control, safety, incident-management, change-management, and data-center operating procedures.