Cisco Network Architect - Full Time - Direct Only

This is a full time position 100% on-site but that may transition to 2 days WFM after a few months.

This position is responsible for supporting the design and architecture of the client s data, wireless, video, and VOIP networks, as well as cloud and IaaS based network connectivity. The Network Architect approaches solution designs with a high level of ownership to deliver secure and operationally sound solutions. This role encompasses three key areas of focus: physical designs that illustrate how the network system integrates with the enterprise, logical/secure designs to meet defined solution requirements, and monitoring/measuring that validates the expected digital experience and business value. The Network Architect will make recommendations for emerging technologies. This position requires an active review of designs to ensure that all business requirements, technical requirements, and monitoring objectives are met. The Network Architect will collaborate across the network team and other IT stakeholder groups to propose security, scalability, availability, supportability, and cost improvements. In addition, the Network Architect will provide technical guidance across the organization, from strategic decision advice down to the project planning level.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Contributes to the strategic design and architecture of the client s data network environment.
• Contributes to the design, deployment, and maintenance of various network systems and components including: routers, switches, internet services, wide area network services, wireless networks, VPNs, firewalls, video networks and related infrastructure, VoIP network and related infrastructure, Security, and performance management and monitoring systems.
• Participate in physical build planning and design for new spaces. Scope, recommend, design, plan, oversee and test inter-rack and station cabling for office, MDF, IDF and datacenter builds and refreshes.
• Configure networks to ensure their smooth and reliable operation for fulfilling business objectives and processes.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend purchase, development, or enhancement of network hardware and software.
• Recommends performance standards, processes, policies, and procedures.
• Provide senior level technical support for network elements and systems.
• Design and provide for the monitoring of network performance and troubleshoot problem areas as needed.
• Collaborate with executive management and department leaders to assess near and long-term network capacity needs.
• Create and maintain documentation as it relates to network architecture and network configuration.
• Assures knowledge transfer for new systems.
• Coordinate with other members of the firm for business continuity and disaster recovery programs.

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience
• 7+ years experience in network field
• Proven experience and success with planning, installing and managing networks including LAN, MAN, WAN, Optical Networking, Silverpeak SDWAN Optimizers, F5 Load Balancers, iRules, F5 Global Traffic Manager, Infoblox/BloxOne, Illumio, Checkpoint firewalls, Checkpoint Identity Collector, VPN, DMZ, IDS/IPS, Zscaler Web Proxy, content filter, NAC and Cisco ISE, Ciena DWDM, 100 Gig optics, DNS Traffic Control, Cisco ACI & NXOS, SDN, network segmentation, Cisco Catalyst center, Cisco CLI, ACL management, SNMP MIB s, Aruba wireless controllers and AP s, SSL certificate creation and management, DNS Domain registration, Citrix Netscaler, VMware NSX, network taps, Extrahop.
• Azure networking solutions including Virtual Network Peering, VPN Gateway, and ExpressRoute to support SaaS and cloud-based initiatives.
• Familiarity with IaC (infrastructure as code), ex. Ansible, Terraform, Azure Resource Manager, Chef.
• Familiarity with EntraID, Active Directory, LDAP, PKI, SAML, OAUTH, SSO.
• Network Monitoring and Tools (OpenView, Spectrum, NetScout, Gigamon, APCON, NetMRI, MRTG, CACTI, Solarwinds, SmokePing, NetFlow, Tufin, Splunk and syslog)
• Proven experience with network capacity planning, security principles, and general network management best practices and optimizations for performance.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of LAN/WAN/MAN protocols and technologies including Carrier Ethernet, T1, DS3, optical, DWDM, NTP, Spanning Tree, VLAN s, 802.1q, VFR, LFA, , SNMP v1-v3, OSPF, BGP, MPLS, VPLS, SIP, H.323, QoS, Multicast, Anycast, 802.1x, Radius, TACACS+, SSH, NAC, DHCP, DNS, F5 Wide-IP, VRRP, HSRP, GLBP, PBR, VPC, LACP, SGT, SGACL, SXP, VxLAN, OTP, LISP, SPAN, WCCP, PfR, IPSLA, iWAN, VPN, SIP, IPSec, WiFi 6, 6E, 7.
• Strong working knowledge of Cisco routers and switches (Nexus 9K, 7K, 5K, 2K, 1K; Catalyst 9410, 9300; ISR-4451, 8300)
• Experience with fiber optic cabling, patching, cleaning, and troubleshooting.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of DNS record creation: A, CNAME, TXT, SRV, NS and PTR.
• Experience with DNS SPF, DMARC and DKIM records.
• Racking and patching appliances and servers.
• Rack power management and monitoring, configuring managed PDUs.
• Experience with console servers for out-of-band serial access.
• Experience with DevOps, automating and scripting.
• Data Center, server room and IDF design; station cabling layout design and implementation; UPS management and monitoring and environmental monitoring systems.
• Preferred certifications: CCNA, CCNP, CCDE, CCDA, CCSP
• Strong verbal and interpersonal skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong customer service skills
• Strong team skills
• Strong leadership skills
• Strong project management skills
• Experience working in a multi-office environment.