Sr. Manager, Network Engineering

Clearwater Analytics•Chicago, IL

About The Position

The Sr. Manager, Network Engineering leads the Network Engineering and Systems Engineering squads responsible for the infrastructure backbone of a financial services SaaS platform. This is a hands-on leadership role spanning network architecture, data center operations, Linux systems, virtualization, container orchestration, and cloud integration. The manager sets infrastructure strategy, mentors and scales engineering teams, and remains deeply involved in architecture decisions, technology evaluations, technical escalations, and network engineering problem-solving. The role owns the platform’s hybrid on-premises and public-cloud infrastructure, including data center networks, edge routing and security, MPLS connectivity, systems engineering, automation, and reliability practices. It works closely with software engineering, security, DevOps, data operations, and client connectivity teams to support mission-critical financial services with carrier-grade reliability. The manager also leads incident response and partners with Security and Compliance on regulatory and audit requirements. The position requires extensive hands-on infrastructure experience, including at least 10 years in network engineering, systems administration, infrastructure operations, or DevOps; at least 5 years in a senior or lead technical role; 3 or more years of people management; and 2 or more years in financial services or FinTech. A BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent practical experience—is listed.

Requirements

10+ years of hands-on experience in network engineering, systems administration, infrastructure operations, or DevOps, including at least 5 years in a senior or lead technical role managing enterprise-scale infrastructure.
3+ years of people management experience, with demonstrated success building and scaling engineering teams.
2+ years of experience in financial services or FinTech; regulated infrastructure experience is an advantage.
Deep hands-on network engineering expertise, including BGP, MPLS, OSPF, other dynamic routing protocols, and designing and operating data center LAN/WAN networks at scale.
Production-grade hands-on experience with Cisco data center LAN switching, Arista edge routing, and Palo Alto firewalls, including vendor-specific CLI and configurations.
Strong MPLS design, implementation, and troubleshooting experience; MPLS traffic engineering, Fast Reroute (FRR), or segment routing experience is expected.
Experience with Layer 2 technologies including VPLS, multicast, spanning tree, VXLAN, and dark fiber terminations; understanding of next-generation data center network architectures.
Hands-on Linux administration with RHEL and Debian-based distributions, strong command-line proficiency, and systems-level diagnostic ability.
Production-grade Kubernetes cluster operations experience, including workload scheduling, resource governance, and service mesh configuration.
Infrastructure automation experience with Ansible, Terraform, Salt, or equivalent IaC tooling, including designing automation frameworks.
CI/CD platform expertise with GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Spinnaker, or equivalent, and understanding of software delivery pipeline design.
Hands-on observability experience with Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack (ELK/EFK), CheckMk, or equivalent monitoring and log aggregation tools.
Strong networking fundamentals in TCP/IP, DNS, TLS/PKI, load balancing, VPN, and security architectures, especially for host-based and data center environments.
Experience working with Tier 1/Tier 2 global ISPs and configuring BGP routing with external partners and clients.
Familiarity with financial data connectivity, including FIX, SWIFT, SFTP/FTPS workflows, market data feed management, and custodian integration patterns.
Experience with SOC 2, PCI-DSS, or equivalent compliance frameworks, including audit evidence, access control, and change management.
Scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, Perl, or equivalent, and comfort with API-driven infrastructure management.
Strong communication skills, including explaining technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, leading technical discussions, and writing clear documentation.
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Hybrid and public cloud platform experience, including AWS EC2, EKS, RDS, or S3; cost governance and FinOps awareness.
Familiarity with server virtualization platforms such as ProxMox, VMware vSphere, or equivalent.
Hands-on experience with extranet providers and services such as TNS, MegaPort, or ECX.
Working knowledge of relational databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL and time-series data stores in financial contexts.
Java application understanding, including JVM internals, tuning, and garbage collection analysis.
Exposure to financial regulatory environments such as SEC, FINRA, or MiFID II.
Experience with secrets management and certificate lifecycle tooling such as HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk, or Let's Encrypt.
Leadership certifications or training, such as Certified Scrum Product Owner or leadership coaching.
Industry certifications such as CCNP, CCIE (highly desired), JNCIP, JNCIE, RHCA, CKA, CKAD, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and scale the Network Engineering and Systems Engineering squads; set technical direction, hire high performers, and foster operational excellence and continuous improvement.
Own network infrastructure strategy, including data center LAN architecture on Cisco, edge routing on Arista, edge security on Palo Alto, and BGP strategy for client, vendor, and partner connectivity.
Drive MPLS strategy, implementation, and optimization across hybrid on-premises and public-cloud environments, including traffic engineering and failover.
Lead data center network operations across LAN, WAN, and MAN networks; oversee connectivity provisioning, infrastructure technology reviews, and purchasing decisions.
Own full-stack systems engineering, including Linux administration, hypervisor and VM operations, Kubernetes strategy and operations, CI/CD architecture, and infrastructure-as-code frameworks.
Design monitoring, alerting, and log aggregation strategies and establish SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs aligned with platform requirements.
Architect and operate the hybrid cloud footprint, including on-premises infrastructure, AWS integration, co-location facilities, connectivity, and failover.
Champion infrastructure automation and tooling, including adoption of Ansible, Terraform, or equivalent IaC frameworks and configuration-management and infrastructure-versioning practices.
Support financial data connectivity, including market data feeds, custodian integrations, FIX/SWIFT/SFTP protocols, and third-party data vendor connections.
Partner with Security and Compliance to support adherence to SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and applicable financial industry regulatory requirements.
Evaluate technologies and vendors and make architectural recommendations based on operational maturity, business impact, and team capability.
Lead incident response for platform-level outages, conduct root cause analysis, and drive permanent resolution of systemic reliability issues.