Lead Network Engineer (RapidScale)

Cox Enterprises; Raleigh, Chapel Hill (NC, NC); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Lead Network Engineer to oversee complex network challenges while managing a dedicated team. This role requires a blend of technical expertise and leadership skills, ensuring seamless network health and performance. The ideal candidate will thrive in a dynamic environment, tackling technical escalations and guiding teams toward operational excellence. With a commitment to innovation and a focus on customer satisfaction, this opportunity allows you to make a significant impact in the world of managed network solutions.

Benefits

Best-in-class benefits

Commitment to work-life balance

Award-winning workplace experience

Qualifications

• 6 years of experience in network technology and management.
• Strong understanding of OSI and TCP/IP models.
• Experience in mentoring and developing team members.

Responsibilities

• Supervise and mentor a third-party offshore alert monitoring team.
• Lead incident resolution efforts for high-priority outages.
• Collaborate with various teams on network-related projects.

Skills

Leadership Skills

Analytical Skills

Problem-Solving Skills

TCP/IP Knowledge

Network Security

Communication Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in a Related Discipline

Master's Degree in a Related Discipline

Ph.D. in a Related Discipline

Tools

Network Performance Monitoring Tools

VeloCloud Orchestrator

FortiManager

PRTG

LogicMonitor

Job description

At RapidScale, exceptional technology is powered by exceptional people. As a growing leader in secure, reliable managed cloud solutions, we help SMBs and enterprises alike simplify IT and unleash innovation. With a broad portfolio spanning AWS, Azure and Google to a full set of Private Cloud and Cybersecurity solutions, RapidScale helps companies turn technology into their biggest competitive advantage. As part of the Cox family of companies, we offer best-in-class benefits, a commitment to work-life balance, and an award-winning workplace experience.

We, the Rapidscale Managed Network Operations (MNO) team, are seeking a Lead Network Engineer to serve as the highest escalation point for complex network challenges while also supervising a team that provides proactive health monitoring of customer managed networks and services. This role blends deep technical expertise with proven leadership skillset, requiring a critical thinker who can navigate and understand complex network architectures, quickly identify intricate network communication issues, with ability to troubleshoot network security and firewall failures to protect critical customer systems.

Beyond technical problem-solving, this individual will take ownership of a third-party offshore alert monitoring team, ensuring seamless 24/7 oversight of network health and performance. They will be responsible for providing clear direction during high-impact network events, coordinating response efforts across teams, incident commanding, and driving issues to resolution with efficiency and urgency. Prior team management experience is essential, as this role requires balancing hands-on technical engagement with guiding and developing both internal engineers and external monitoring resources.

The ideal candidate is an experienced network technology expert with proven leadership skills, equally comfortable tackling the toughest technical escalations, managing critical incidents, and leading teams toward operational excellence. This is an opportunity for a highly skilled engineer to leverage their leadership experience in a dynamic, high-impact environment.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Essential functions of the role include resolving complex networks issues, supervising and mentoring a team of people that monitor network incidents, driving results by tracking KPI metric performance, communication, hiring and selection of quality candidates, collaboration, administration, and self-development.

• Supervise and mentor a third-party offshore alert monitoring team, ensuring seamless 24/7 network health and performance oversight.

• Act as the primary subject matter expert (SME) and lead advisor for the Managed Network Support organization, ensuring alignment with business goals and best practices.

• Provide Tier-3 support for the MNO Support teams, assisting in complex troubleshooting, issue resolution, and escalated customer situations.

• Lead incident resolution efforts for high-priority outages, guiding teams through troubleshooting and restoration procedures.

• Collaborate with Datacenter, Implementation, Product, and Technology teams on network-related projects.

• Serve as a technical leader for networking issues, supporting Tier-1 and Tier-2 MNO Support teams and Sales Engineering.

• Oversee and enhance network alert monitoring processes, reviewing performance data, coaching support agents, and driving consistent resolution of trouble cases.

• Lead team meetings and knowledge-sharing sessions, cascading key information, best practices, and performance expectations.

• Develop and improve operations processes and best practices to enhance efficiency, service quality, and response times.

• Collaborate with Cox NOC, Service Assurance, network equipment vendors, and ISP/MSP providers to ensure optimal support and resolution pathways.

• Act as a bridge between RapidScale Network Support, internal sales, customer case teams, and customers, ensuring smooth communication and issue resolution.

• Maintain awareness of evolving business, technical, operational, and infrastructure challenges, acting as a consultant for creative solutions.

• Some on-call responsibilities and occasional off-hours work required.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related discipline and 6 years’ experience in a related field. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master’s degree and 4 years’ experience; a Ph.D. and 1 year of experience; or 10 years’ experience in a related field

• Strong leadership skills with the ability to effectively lead contractor resources and technology teams, and manage various vendor relationships

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.

• Excellent problem solving, process management, and collaborative skills

• In-depth understanding of the OSI or TCP/IP.

• Deep level knowledge and experience with protocols/technologies such as TCP/UDP, Routing and Switching, SSL/IPsec, VPN, VLAN, STP, SSL, BGP, QoS, MPLS, DHCP, Networks Security, and Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW)

• Extensive experience with LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, and Wi-Fi technologies

• Experience with network performance monitoring and management tools

• Ability to mentor, advise, and help build up less experienced team members

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate technical details to a range of audiences, including those without a technical background.

• Understanding of server virtualization

• Experience in Monitoring, analyzing and evaluating network performance to ensure system availability and reliability and traffic flow optimization

• Proven leadership skills with experience managing teams, vendors, and complex projects

• Industry certifications like Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), Juniper Certified Internet Professional (JNCIP), VeloCloud VCP, or Fortinet NSE4

Preferred:

• Proven SD-WAN experience with either one of the following vendors, VeloCloud, Fortinet, or Meraki

• Excellent problem solving, process management, and collaborative skills

• Possess strong sense of customer empathy and care deeply about top customer problems

• Strong ability to monitor and troubleshoot network performance and integrity. Resolve escalated issues by troubleshooting both cloud and local infrastructure.

• Experience with VMware virtualization environments

• Proven experience with Fortinet Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW). Physical and virtualized

• Hands-on experience with the following network monitoring and orchestration tools: VeloCloud Orchestrator, FortiManager, FAZ, PRTG, and LogicMonitor

• Industry certifications like Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), Juniper Certified Networks Certified Internet Expert (JNCIE), or Fortinet NSE7