Senior Network Engineer and Manager

About the role

The Connecticut Education Network (CEN) is Connecticut’s trusted, mission-driven Research and Education (R&E) network, delivering high-performance Internet connectivity and secure shared services to community anchor institutions statewide. For more than 25 years, CEN has supported education, research, healthcare, government, libraries, cultural arts, and open access organizations by providing a resilient, scalable, and secure Internet and network service platform.

Responsibilities

• Build: Network Architecture & Strategy
  • Lead long-range planning for architecture, capacity, and security.
  • Develop network architecture to support evolving services and constituent needs.
  • Provide engineering plans, detailed diagrams, implementation specifications, and materials quotes.
• Run: Operations & Incident Management
  • Serve as the final internal escalation point for network incidents, outages, and service requests.
  • Lead outage resolution and post-incident reporting with detailed root cause analysis.
  • Ensure high availability and performance of services including DIA, MPLS VPNs, DNS, firewalls, and content filtering.
  • Plan and conduct software/firmware upgrades.
• Grow: Capacity planning
  • Conduct software/hardware lifecycle management.
  • Quarterly capacity planning.
  • Network failure analysis.
• Repeat & Test: Automation & Optimization
  • Develop and deploy advanced automation scripts and software to streamline operations and telemetry.
  • Perform system tuning, upgrades, and proactive optimizations to ensure efficiency and scalability.
  • Ensure config standardization and minimize drift.
  • Conduct device-level testing with Ixia, identify software defects, and behavior anomalies.
• Project & Business Development
  • Provide project management support for customer provisioning and network expansions.
  • Collaborate with business units and leadership to develop new services and support customer engagement.
  • Contribute to procurement processes through technical specifications and vendor coordination.
  • Lead network expansions and new service developments.
• Leadership & Mentorship
  • Supervise and mentor junior staff, fostering professional development and cross-team competency.
  • Document and disseminate best engineering practices across University, College, K-12, and Library participants.
  • Represent CEN on advisory boards, councils, and forums as needed.
• Security & Compliance
  • Maintain and test network security protocols in alignment with industry best practices.
  • Lead business continuity and disaster recovery planning, testing, and execution.
  • Document security policies and procedures.
• Documentation & Asset Management
  • Maintain accurate records of fiber assets, equipment inventory, and network documentation.
  • Provide reports on network behavior, risk assessments, and strategic recommendations to leadership.
• Community Engagement & Support
  • Support virtual and physical events, presentations, and training sessions for peers and the broader CEN community.
  • Collaborate with community partners to enhance network services.

Qualifications

• Must be US Citizen or Green Card holder.
• Bachelor’s degree and six years of directly related experience OR an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Two (2) years of experience must be serving in a supervisory capacity with responsibility for staff, structure, and performance.
• Three (3) years’ of total experience must be as the network lead or senior engineer in support of a service provider, R&E or large-scale enterprise network.
• Demonstrated understanding of BGP, IS-IS, IPv6, OSPF, MPLS, Traffic Engineering, QinQ, G.8032, 802.3ad, 802.3ag, Y.1731.
• Demonstrated understanding of VPN technologies such as L2VPNs (Martini, Kompella), RFC2547, VPLS, EVPN.
• Demonstrated experience leveraging VRFs in complex network environments.
• Proven experience in providing high profile outage resolution and post incident reviews.
• Demonstrated communication and writing skills.

Skills

• Problem Solving: Sound analytic and diagnostic skills dealing with issues that are defined and/or where information is available but must be further manipulated.
• Team Orientation: Builds relationships with peers and other departments to achieve objectives. Balances team and individual responsibilities. Exhibits objectivity and openness to others’ views. Gives and welcomes feedback.
• Productivity, Planning, and Time Management: Proficient in office productivity software such as O365 suite, MS Teams, Google Apps, etc. Works with the project or team lead in identifying those tasks that are most important, establishes clear priorities and understands the larger picture. Executes tasks and creates documentation as required.

Physical Demands

• This position involves extended periods of sitting and the extensive use of computers and office equipment.
• May involve stooping, kneeling, crouching and/or working on step ladders.
• Involves close vision, color vision, depth perception, and focus adjustment.
• Must be able to lift 40 lbs. to shoulder height and must have a valid license and ability to drive.