Network Manager (Hybrid) Bolingbrook, IL

About the role

The Network Systems Manager is responsible for the strategic oversight, design, delivery, and ongoing operation of S&S Activewear’s enterprise network infrastructure across all North American locations. This role leads a team of engineers while remaining hands-on in architecture, ensuring secure, scalable, and highly available WAN, LAN, and wireless environments. The position drives modernization initiatives, enforces technical governance, and ensures network performance aligns with business operations across distribution centers, corporate offices, and cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing network engineering team.
• Manage day-to-day operations, priorities, and incident response.
• Partner with IT leadership and business stakeholders to align network strategy.
• Establish performance expectations and career development plans.
• Own enterprise network architecture and technical governance.
• Drive segmentation, automation, and cloud integration initiatives.
• Design highly available and resilient network solutions.
• Lead capacity planning and lifecycle roadmaps.
• Oversee infrastructure across routers, firewalls, switches, wireless, SD-WAN, and VPN.
• Ensure proactive monitoring, alerting, and observability.
• Lead incident management and root cause analysis.
• Manage WAN circuits and ISP relationships.
• Enforce network security standards and segmentation strategies.
• Align operations with audit and compliance requirements.
• Lead structured change management practices.
• Maintain diagrams, standards, and operating procedures.
• Establish configuration templates and governance standards.
• Manage vendor relationships and service contracts.
• Develop and manage infrastructure budgets.

Requirements

• 7+ years of network engineering experience.
• 2+ years in a leadership role.
• Strong expertise in routing, switching, firewalls, wireless, VPN, and SD-WAN.
• Experience in multi-site enterprise environments.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Entra ID / Active Directory.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Relevant certifications (Palo Alto, Aruba, Security+).
• Experience with automation or infrastructure-as-code tools.

Core Competencies

• Strategic thinking with hands-on execution.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration.
• High accountability and adaptability.

Work Environment & Travel

Support of multi-site operations across the U.S. and Canada. Participation in on-call escalation for critical incidents.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or listen. Working Environment This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely involves standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets and fax machines.

Equal Opportunity Employer

S&S Activewear welcomes people of all backgrounds and experiences and are committed to creating a diverse culture and supporting human growth. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing equal opportunity for all employees and applicants. We conduct business without regard to sex, race, creed, color, religion, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, military status, status as a veteran, or any other protected characteristic. Our policy is to recruit, hire, train, promote, assign, transfer, and terminate employees based on their own ability, achievement, experience and conduct and other legitimate business reasons. S&S participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm you are authorized to work in the U.S. This job offer is contingent upon the completion of a satisfactory background check.