Tier 3 Network Lead (CCNP Required)

Ardent; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Ardent seeks a Tier 3 Network Lead to join our team on-site in Washington, DC, supporting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s wired, wireless, WAN, Internet, and cloud connectivity. You will lead operations, monitoring, troubleshooting, and restoration across museum locations, ensuring 24x7x365 availability.

Strong expertise in enterprise routing/switching, Cisco platforms, and SolarWinds is required. Responsibilities include configuring switches/routers, diagnosing outages, applying updates, and

Qualifications

• CCNP certification required.
• Expert-level knowledge of enterprise routing and switching.
• Experience with wired, wireless, WAN, Internet, and cloud-connected networks.
• Advanced SolarWinds proficiency (monitoring, alerting, mapping).
• Hands-on Cisco switching/routing and enterprise wireless experience.
• Experience coordinating carrier/vendor restorations and documenting root causes.

Responsibilities

• Lead operations, monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, and restoration for LAN/WAN/Internet/Wi‑Fi across Museum locations.
• Install and configure switches/routers; monitor health, bandwidth, latency, and circuit performance.
• Diagnose and resolve outages, routing loops, connectivity issues, and RF interference.
• Apply firmware/software updates in coordination with change-control requirements.
• Use SolarWinds to identify events, reduce alert noise, and support fault detection.
• Provide expert routing/switching support for Cisco Nexus/Catalyst/ASR and related infrastructure.
• Operate and maintain Aruba Central‑managed wireless infrastructure and report security issues to CISO.
• Coordinate with ISPs, circuit providers, cloud providers, and vendors for outages and deployments.
• Maintain documentation: diagrams, circuit/provider records, incident/change notes.

Skills

CCNP certification

Enterprise routing & switching

Wired/Wireless/WAN/Cloud networks

SolarWinds Orion

Cisco switching & routing

Vendor coordination & incident comms

Onsite + after-hours support

Tools

Cisco Nexus/Catalyst/ASR

Aruba wireless infrastructure

Job description

Ardent is seeking a Tier 3 Network Lead to join our team.

This is an on-site position in Washington, D.C.

Position Description:

Ardent is seeking a Tier 3 Network Lead to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and the technology foundation behind its historically important mission. The Museum’s ability to preserve Holocaust history, educate the public, and connect staff and visitors depends on secure, resilient, and high-performing wired and wireless infrastructure. The Tier 3 Network Lead is responsible for the performance, availability, and operational maintenance of the Museum’s wired, wireless, WAN, Internet, cloud-connectivity, and distributed antenna infrastructure. The position supports onsite operations to enable 24x7x365 enterprise escalation requirements.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Lead operations, monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, and restoration for LAN, WAN, Internet, Wi-Fi, cloud connectivity, and distributed antenna systems across Museum-supported locations.
• Install and configure switches and routers; monitor device health, bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput, interfaces, access points, and circuit performance.
• Diagnose and resolve network outages, routing loops, connectivity issues, authentication failures, RF interference, hardware failures, and performance degradation.
• Apply approved firmware and software updates to network switches, routers, wireless switches, and access points in coordination with Museum change-control requirements.
• Use SolarWinds Orion and associated alert dependencies to identify actionable events, reduce alert noise, detect degrading infrastructure, and support proactive and reactive Problem Management.
• Provide expert-level routing and switching support for the Museum’s Cisco Nexus, Catalyst, ASR, regional switching, and related wired infrastructure.
• Operate and maintain Aruba Central‑managed wireless infrastructure, monitor client and access‑point health, maintain wireless diagrams and RF maps, and report security issues to the Museum CISO.
• Coordinate with Internet service providers, circuit providers, cloud‑connectivity providers, and equipment vendors for outages, installations, upgrades, troubleshooting, restoration, and after‑action reporting.
• Support network cabling, data center connectivity, equipment labeling, cable management, hardware replacement, vendor RMA activity, and approved infrastructure changes.
• Maintain accurate network diagrams, circuit and provider records, configuration records, incident documentation, change records, troubleshooting notes, and knowledge articles.
• Lead Tier 3 escalation for Priority 1 and Priority 2 incidents and provide after‑hours support for failures affecting core networking, data center connectivity, AWS access, or enterprise operations.
• Collaborate with Museum technical monitors and security personnel to implement approved performance, availability, and operational requirements.

Requirements:

• Current Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification.
• Expert-level knowledge of enterprise routing and switching.
• Demonstrated experience operating and troubleshooting complex wired, wireless, WAN, Internet, and cloud‑connected network environments.
• Advanced proficiency with SolarWinds, including event monitoring, alert configuration, dependency mapping, trend analysis, and proactive fault detection.
• Hands‑on experience with Cisco switching and routing platforms and enterprise wireless infrastructure.
• Experience coordinating carrier and vendor restoration, documenting root cause, and communicating status during major incidents.
• Ability to support onsite work and participate in 24x7x365 after‑hours escalation for critical network incidents.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Cisco Nexus 9000, Catalyst 9200/9300/9500, ASR 1000‑HX, Cisco CLI, TACACS+, and Wireshark.
• Experience with Aruba CX6300, Aruba wireless access points, and Aruba Central Cloud Management.
• Experience supporting Metro Ethernet, multiple ISP links, cloud connectivity, distributed antenna systems, and geographically dispersed offices.
• Experience in a high‑availability cultural, historical, museum, nonprofit, or Federal environment.

Due to the nature of the work we support, all candidates in consideration for this role must be willing to undergo the government issued background investigation process.

Ardent is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other basis protected by state, local, or federal law.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Ardent’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.