Network Engineer (Data Center Migration) Location: Phoenix, AZ (Hybrid onsite 3 days/week)
Employment Type: Contract (12 months)
Industry: Financial Services
About the Role
A leading financial services organization is expanding its Network Engineering team to support a largescale data center network migration program in advance of a planned legacy data center decommission. This role focuses on executing and validating complex Layer 2 and Layer 3 network migrations within a highly controlled, enterprise environment.
You ll work closely with Network Infrastructure, Data Center Engineering, and Data Center Operations teams to support migration planning, cutover execution, stabilization, and decommission readiness.
Key Responsibilities
Network Migration & Cutover
- Support Layer 2 and Layer 3 network migrations between legacy and new data center environments
- Execute rackbyrack, zonebased, or wavebased cutovers
- Assist with dualrunning (coexistence) network states during phased migrations
- Perform traffic validation, failover testing, and postmigration stabilization
Network Engineering & Operations
- Configure, validate, and modify switches, routers, and related network devices
- Work with Cisco and/or Arista switching platforms
- Support BGPbased and EVPN/VXLAN data center network designs
- Troubleshoot complex L2/L3 connectivity issues during migration windows
- Participate in approved maintenance and change windows
Change Management & Risk Control
- Contribute to RFC creation, review, and execution
- Ensure changes align with approved designs, runbooks, and enterprise standards
- Support rollback planning and realtime issue resolution
- Document network changes and update systems as required
Decommission Readiness Support
- Coordinate with decommission teams to properly isolate network assets
- Assist with configuration cleanup and validation prior to hardware powerdown
- Ensure clean handoffs to reduce rework during physical decommission activities
Required Qualifications
- Strong handson experience with Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking
- Experience supporting enterprise data center network migrations
- Solid understanding of BGP
- Handson experience with Cisco and/or Arista network hardware
- Experience with modern data center fabrics (EVPN/VXLAN or similar)
- Strong troubleshooting skills in complex, multidependency environments
Nice to Have
- Experience with F5 Load Balancing (LTM/GTM)
- Prior involvement in data center decommissioning or asset retirement
- Experience in highly regulated environments (financial services preferred)
- Familiarity with ServiceNow or similar change/ticketing systems
- Experience coordinating with compute, storage, and data center operations teams
Why This Role
This is a highimpact opportunity to work on a wellplanned, enterprisescale data center transformation. Rather than a reactive, ticketdriven environment, this role emphasizes disciplined execution, migration strategy, and longterm infrastructure lifecycle impact.
You ll gain handson exposure to modern data center architectures while contributing to a multiyear initiative with real business visibility and importance.