Lead Network Engineer

Strategic Employment Partners (SEP); Buena Park (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k up to 10% employer contribution

Low-cost medical

Generous PTO

Job summary

Strategic Employment Partners (SEP) supports a well-established organization hiring a Lead Network Operations Engineer in Buena Park, CA. This role blends people leadership (about 75% shift supervision) with hands-on technical work to manage complex incidents.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years of NOC experience, direct BGP troubleshooting, and a track record leading engineers, driving incident response, monitoring, and process improvements in a large-scale network.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on NOC experience in a large-scale production network environment with BGP troubleshooting.
• Demonstrated shift lead or people management experience with accountability for reports and ticket quality.
• Hands-on incident response, escalation ownership, and network monitoring tooling experience.
• Familiarity with automation tools such as Python or Ansible applied to NOC workflows.
• MPLS experience is a plus; DWDM is not expected.

Responsibilities

• Lead the NOC shift, providing supervision and accountability for the team.
• Run point on complex incidents and drive timely resolution and root-cause analysis.
• Own escalation processes, ticket discipline, and continuous improvement of monitoring workflows.

Skills

NOC leadership

BGP troubleshooting

Incident response

Network monitoring

Automation (Python/Ansible)

Tools

Zabbix

Python

Ansible

Job description

We are working with a well-established organization that is looking to add a Lead Network Operations Engineer to their team. This is primarily a people leadership role, roughly 75% shift supervision and 25% hands-on technical work, and the right candidate will bring both the technical credibility to run point on complex incidents and the leadership presence to hold a shift team accountable.

Desired Skills

• 5+ years of hands-on NOC experience in a large-scale production network environment with direct BGP troubleshooting experience including peering, route leaks, and flapping
• Demonstrated shift lead or people management experience including one-on-ones, ticket quality review, and holding direct reports accountable. Strong senior engineers with a credible leadership trajectory will be considered
• Hands-on experience with incident response, escalation ownership, ticketing discipline, and network monitoring tooling such as Zabbix or comparable platforms, with a track record of identifying process gaps and implementing fixes
• Familiarity with automation tools such as Python, Ansible, or streaming telemetry applied to NOC workflows. MPLS experience is a plus. DWDM is not expected

This is a hybrid role

They offer strong benefits including up to 10% employer 401k contribution, low-cost medical, and generous PTO.