Director, Network Engineering

Position Summary

The Director of Network Engineering leads the strategy, architecture, and operational execution of the company’s enterprise-wide network infrastructure.   This role oversees the engineering, implementation, and lifecycle management of all network technologies across data centers, cloud environments, and distributed enterprise locations. The Director will ensure a secure, resilient, and scalable network foundation that enables business growth, supports hybrid cloud adoption, and delivers an exceptional end-user experience

A critical focus of this position is driving the strategy and hands-on implementation of network automation, encompassing provisioning, configuration management, patching, observability, and self-healing capabilities. The Director will modernize legacy processes, build an automation-first culture, and ensure the network operates as a programmable, data-driven platform leveraging Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortigate, Netscaler, Solarwinds, and Aruba technologies.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Architecture

• Develop and execute a multi-year network automation and modernization strategy, integrating automation across provisioning, configuration, compliance, patching, and telemetry workflows.
• Define the enterprise network architecture roadmap aligned with business priorities, security frameworks, and cloud adoption initiatives.
• Partner with Enterprise Infrastructure Architecture, Cloud, and Cybersecurity leaders to ensure the network design supports automation, scalability, and zero-trust principles.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee the availability, performance, and resilience of global network operations across data centers, cloud, and edge locations.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that leverage automation, orchestration, and observability tools to reduce MTTR and manual interventions.
• Drive consistent configuration management and patching compliance through code-based deployment models for network infrastructure.

Technology Ownership & Implementation

• Direct the design, implementation, and optimization of existing technology environments across LAN/WAN, wireless, and data center segments.
• Lead the deployment and scaling of network automation frameworks using Python, Ansible, Terraform, or API-driven integrations with associated automating tools.
• Establish standards and reusable automation playbooks for provisioning, configuration drift detection, patch orchestration, and service validation.
• Champion observability initiatives to unify network telemetry, performance analytics, and event correlation through AIOps and modern monitoring platforms.

Vendor & Budget Management

• Manage technology partnerships and contracts to ensure alignment with automation and operational excellence goals.
• Collaborate with the IT Procurement organization to negotiate vendor terms that include knowledge transfer, embedded enablement, and automation tool integration.
• Develop and manage annual budgets covering network engineering projects, tools, people and lifecycle investments.

Team Leadership & Development

• Build and mentor a high-performing, automation-focused network engineering team.
• Foster a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and cross-domain collaboration between infrastructure and security teams.
• Establish clear performance and skill development goals around automation adoption and operational efficiency.

Security, Governance & Compliance

• Maintain comprehensive architecture diagrams, automation scripts, and operational runbooks.
• Ensure network change management and configuration baselines are governed through code repositories and approval workflows.
• Partner with Information Security to implement network segmentation, policy automation, and compliance reporting as required.
• Perform other duties and participate in strategic initiatives as assigned.