Senior Network Engineer, Studios

IMG Media Limited; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

IMG Media Limited invites applications for a Senior Network Engineer to join the build and run teams at a modern, automation-first broadcast estate in London. You will help commission a greenfield IP-first facility and own day-to-day network operations on a 24/7 live environment.

The role bridges traditional networking with NetOps, using NetBox as the single source of truth, code-driven configuration, and streaming telemetry to support live content delivery and cloud interconnects.

Qualifications

• Advanced TCP/IP, switching and routing in production
• Experience with EVPN/VXLAN leaf-spine fabrics
• Experience operating and securing enterprise firewalls
• Proficient automation with Python and Ansible, Git workflows

Responsibilities

• Fabric and media network engineering for live broadcasting
• Design, operate and troubleshoot leaf-spine fabrics (BGP/OSPF, EVPN/VXLAN)
• Manage media networks (SMPTE ST 2110, PTP timing) and multicast
• Maintain capacity, firmware and hardware lifecycles across the estate
• Lead NetOps automation: NetBox as source of truth, config-as-code pipelines
• Develop observability with telemetry and monitoring tools

Skills

Networking

BGP/OSPF

EVPN/VXLAN

SMPTE ST 2110

NetBox

Python

Ansible

Git

Tools

NetBox

Grafana

Zabbix

Palo Alto

Fortinet

Cisco NX-OS

Arista EOS

GitHub

Job description

Who We Are:

IMG is a leading global sports marketing agency, specializing in media rights management and sales, multi-channel content production and distribution, brand partnerships, strategic consulting, digital services, and event management. It powers growth of revenues, fanbases and IP for more than 250 federations, associations, events, and teams, including the National Football League, English Premier League, International Olympic Committee, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, ATP and WTA Tours, the AELTC (Wimbledon), Euroleague Basketball, CONMEBOL, World Rugby, DP World Tour, and The R&A, as well as UFC, WWE, and PBR. IMG is a subsidiary of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO), a premium sports and entertainment company.TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) is a premium sports and entertainment company. TKO owns iconic properties including UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization; WWE, the global leader in sports entertainment; and PBR, the world’s premier bull riding organization. Together, these properties reach 1 billion households across 210 countries and territories and organize more than 500 live events year-round, attracting more than three million fans. TKO also services and partners with major sports rights holders through IMG, an industry-leading global sports marketing agency; and On Location, a global leader in premium experiential hospitality.

Working Conditions:

- Stockley Park, London (relocating to Chiswick Park from 2027*)
- Fixed Term Contract till end of 2028
- Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm

IMG is building a new broadcast headquarters at One Chiswick Park: a greenfield, Software defined, IP-first facility producing and delivering live sport 24/7. The Senior Network Engineer joins the network function at the centre of that build: helping commission the new estate through the project phase, then owning its day-to-day engineering permanently as part of the run team.

The position is designed for an engineer who bridges traditional networking and modern NetOps practice. The new estate is automation-first: every device is modelled in a NetBox source of truth, configuration is deployed from code through pipelines rather than hand-edited, and streaming telemetry feeds the observability stack. Changes are expected to land in days, not months, in a facility where the network carries live content around the clock.

The estate spans dedicated SMPTE ST 2110 media networks with PTP timing, EVPN/VXLAN leaf-spine services fabrics, a lossless fabric for emerging media-exchange and compute workloads, enterprise-class firewall estates, and a DWDM dark fibre WAN with dedicated cloud interconnects. You will work alongside the systems integrator during the build, with broadcast and corporate teams day to day, and act as a senior escalation point for the operation. The role suits engineers from broadcast, media, ISP or carrier backgrounds who want to build a modern network from a blank slate and then run it.

Key Responsibilities

• Fabric and media network engineering
• - Core routing and switching: design, operate and troubleshoot leaf-spine fabrics: BGP and OSPF, EVPN/VXLAN overlays, VRF-separated services, routed access.
• - Media networks: operate the ST 2110 environment (dual media fabrics, SMPTE 2022-7 protection, PTP timing discipline, NMOS control) to the standards live production demands.
• - Multicast: maintain advanced, production-grade multicast (PIM-SM with anycast RP, IGMPv3, scoped boundaries) for media and encoded distribution networks.
• - Capacity and lifecycle: manage capacity, firmware and hardware lifecycles across the estate; plan upgrades without service impact in a 24/7 facility.
• NetOps and automation
• - Source of truth: keep NetBox authoritative for sites, racks, devices, circuits, IPAM and cabling; treat documentation drift as a defect.
• - Config as code: build and run the automation that deploys configuration from intent through CI pipelines (Python, Ansible, Git); eliminate hand-edits.
• - Observability: develop monitoring built on streaming telemetry (gNMI/gRPC), flow analysis and modern tooling (Grafana, Zabbix class), serving the 24/7 operations teams as your internal customers.
• - Modernisation: lead the shift from manual workflows to automated NetOps across the run function, and help colleagues make the same shift.
• WAN, cloud and security
• - WAN edge: operate the eBGP edge across diverse DWDM dark fibre paths with BFD; support 1+1 delivery planes for live services and internet-facing contribution/distribution (SRT, Zixi, RTMP).
• - Cloud connectivity: run dedicated cloud interconnects (AWS Direct Connect class) and the hybrid workflows that depend on them.
• - Security: hands‑on management of the firewall estates; network hardening; security telemetry to the group SIEM; work within a security‑by‑design framework aligned to group policy, with deviations justified and recorded.
• Build, migration and leadership
• - Project One: support lab validation, commissioning and the migration of live services from Stockley Park to One Chiswick Park, working directly with the systems integrator.
• - Escalation and mentoring: act as a Level 3 escalation point; mentor engineers across broadcast IT and operations teams in the new architecture and ways of working.

Experience Required

• - Networking expertise: advanced TCP/IP, switching and routing (BGP, OSPF) in production; experience operating EVPN/VXLAN leaf-spine fabrics.
• - Multicast: advanced experience with multicast protocols in a production environment.
• - Automation: demonstrable Python and Ansible for network automation, with Git-based workflows; a NetOps mindset, not a CLI-only history.
• - IPAM/DCIM: experience with NetBox or a similar platform for infrastructure documentation and management; NetBox preferred.
• - Observability: practical experience with modern monitoring (Grafana, Zabbix, ELK class), flow analysis and streaming telemetry.
• - Security: proven experience operating and securing enterprise firewall estates (Palo Alto, Fortinet or Cisco class) and managing firmware lifecycles.

Advantageous

• - Broadcast media networks: SMPTE ST 2110, PTP timing and synchronisation, SMPTE 2022-7, NMOS; media knowledge is strongly preferred.
• - Real‑time transport: RTP, UDP, SRT, RIST, Zixi; error correction (FEC, ARQ); video encoding awareness (AVC, HEVC, JPEG-XS).
• - Lossless fabrics: RoCEv2/RDMA, PFC/ECN and the emerging media‑exchange (MXL) workload class.
• - Optical and WAN: DWDM, dark fibre, optical link budgets and circuit diversity assessment.
• - Vendor platforms: Arista EOS (CloudVision, AVD) and/or Cisco NX-OS (Nexus Dashboard) at data centre scale.
• - Tooling: version control beyond scripts (GitHub or similar); project tools such as Jira or ClickUp.

Soft skills

• - Communication: articulate complex technical concepts clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including production teams.
• - Focus under pressure: remain accurate and calm in a live broadcast environment where the network is on air.
• - Proactive mindset: organised, self‑motivated, and drawn to solving problems with automation rather than repetition.

In addition, success at IMG is driven by four core competencies that apply to all employees:

Business Acumen – Understanding financial drivers, interpreting business data, aligning decisions to strategic outcomes

Operational Excellence – Driving efficiency, governance, and continuous improvement in delivery &operations

Innovation Mindset – Cultivating curiosity, experimentation, and forward-looking capability development

Leadership & Collaboration – Inspiring others, building trust, and enabling collaboration across teams

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