Senior Network Engineer — Cisco Routing & Switching

2 positions: 1 Day Shift, 1 Night Shift. US-based (remote). 6-month contract. Immediate start.

Role Overview

We are seeking two senior-level Cisco Routing & Switching engineers to lead network maintenance-window cutover activities in a large-scale Cisco environment. These are hands-on senior lead roles: strong enough to personally handle the most complex design, configuration, and triage work, and senior enough to provide leadership to a team of engineers executing cuts under time pressure. One resource will cover the day shift; the other will cover the overnight maintenance window.

Hard Requirements

• US Citizen and based in the US (non-negotiable)
• Senior-level Cisco Routing & Switching experience
• Willingness and availability to work the assigned shift

Shift Coverage

• Day Shift: Standard business hours (CST)
• Night Shift: Start between 10:00–11:00 PM CST, ending around 6:00 AM CST

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and provide technical direction to a team of ~10 cut engineers performing maintenance-window cuts on Cisco devices
• Design and build Methods of Procedure (MOPs) for maintenance windows, including rollback and verification steps
• Configure devices from scratch, including configuration translation from older OS versions in production to new devices on current OS
• Own real-time triage during cuts: applied config failures, hardware failures, config recovery, and troubleshooting common failure scenarios
• Execute and oversee routing/switching cutovers with minimal disruption

Required Technical Skills

• Platforms: Cisco IOS-XE; Cisco Nexus OS (NX-OS)
• Routing & Switching (expert level)
• Routing protocols: BGP, OSPF
• First-hop redundancy: HSRP
• VLAN trunking, Spanning Tree, Access Control Lists (ACLs)
• MPLS and service-provider-specific technologies
• Layer 1 / Physical: Single-mode and multi-mode fiber; Cat5 / Cat6 copper cabling; SFP / QSFP transceiver types
• Triage & Operations: Configuration recovery and rollback discipline; hardware fault diagnosis; TACACS — including the client's "Key 6" scenarios (definition to be confirmed with client)

Ideal Profile

• 14+ years in enterprise or service-provider network engineering
• CCNP / CCIE (Routing & Switching or Enterprise) preferred
• Proven experience with large-scale network migrations / hardware refresh cutovers (not steady-state-only)
• Demonstrated ability to lead a team live during high-stakes maintenance windows