Lead Network Engineer (RapidScale)

At RapidScale, exceptional technology is powered by exceptional people. As a growing leader in secure, reliable managed cloud solutions, we help SMBs and enterprises alike simplify IT and unleash innovation. With a broad portfolio spanning AWS, Azure and Google to a full set of Private Cloud and Cybersecurity solutions, RapidScale helps companies turn technology into their biggest competitive advantage.As part of the Cox family of companies, we offer best-in-class benefits, a commitment to work-life balance, and an award-winning workplace experience.

We, the Rapidscale Managed Network Operations (MNO) team, are seeking aLead Network Engineerto serve as the highest escalation point for complex network challenges while also supervising a team that provides proactive health monitoring of customer managed networks and services. This role blends deep technical expertise with proven leadership skillset, requiring a critical thinker who can navigate and understand complex network architectures, quickly identify intricate network communication issues, with ability to troubleshoot network security and firewall failures to protect critical customer systems.

Beyond technical problem-solving, this individual will take ownership of athird-party offshore alert monitoring team, ensuring seamless 24/7 oversight of network health and performance. They will be responsible for providing clear direction during high-impact network events, coordinating response efforts across teams,incident commanding,and driving issues to resolution with efficiency and urgency. Priorteam management experienceis essential, as this role requires balancing hands-on technical engagement with guiding and developing both internal engineers and external monitoring resources.

The ideal candidate is anexperienced network technology expert with proven leadership skills, equally comfortable tackling the toughest technical escalations, managing critical incidents, and leading teams toward operational excellence. This is an opportunity for a highly skilled engineer to leverage their leadership experience in a dynamic, high-impact environment.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Essential functions of the role include resolving complex networks issues, supervising and mentoring a team of people that monitor network incidents, driving results by tracking KPI metric performance, communication, hiring and selection of quality candidates, collaboration, administration, and self-development.

• Supervise and mentor a third-party offshore alert monitoring team, ensuring seamless 24/7 network health and performance oversight.
• Act as the primary subject matter expert (SME) and lead advisor for the Managed Network Support organization, ensuring alignment with business goals and best practices.
• Provide Tier-3 support for the MNO Support teams, assisting in complex troubleshooting, issue resolution, and escalated customer situations.
• Lead incident resolution efforts for high-priority outages, guiding teams through troubleshooting and restoration procedures.
• Collaborate with Datacenter, Implementation, Product, and Technology teams on network-related projects.
• Serve as a technical leader for networking issues, supporting Tier-1 and Tier-2 MNO Support teams and Sales Engineering.
• Oversee and enhance network alert monitoring processes, reviewing performance data, coaching support agents, and driving consistent resolution of trouble cases.
• Lead team meetings and knowledge-sharing sessions, cascading key information, best practices, and performance expectations.
• Develop and improve operations processes and best practices to enhance efficiency, service quality, and response times.
• Collaborate with Cox NOC, Service Assurance, network equipment vendors, and ISP/MSP providers to ensure optimal support and resolution pathways.
• Act as a bridge between RapidScale Network Support, internal sales, customer case teams, and customers, ensuring smooth communication and issue resolution.
• Maintain awareness of evolving business, technical, operational, and infrastructure challenges, acting as a consultant for creative solutions.
• Some on-call responsibilities and occasional off-hours work required.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree in a related discipline and 6 years experience in a related field. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a masters degree and 4 years experience; a Ph.D. and 1 year of experience; or 10 years experience in a related field
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to effectively lead contractor resources and technology teams, and manage various vendor relationships
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Excellent problem solving, process management, and collaborative skills
• In-depth understanding of the OSI or TCP/IP.
• Deep level knowledge and experience with protocols/technologies such as TCP/UDP, Routing and Switching, SSL/IPsec, VPN, VLAN, STP, SSL, BGP, QoS, MPLS, DHCP,Networks Security, and Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW)
• Extensive experience with LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, and Wi-Fi technologies
• Experience with network performance monitoring and management tools
• Ability to mentor, advise, and help build up less experienced team members
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate technical details to a range of audiences, including those without a technical background.
• Understanding of server virtualization
• Experience in Monitoring, analyzing and evaluating network performance to ensure system availability and reliability and traffic flow optimization
• Proven leadership skills with experience managing teams, vendors, and complex projects
• Industry certifications like Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), Juniper Certified Internet Professional (JNCIP), VeloCloud VCP, or Fortinet NSE4

Preferred:

• Proven SD-WAN experience with either one of the following vendors, VeloCloud, Fortinet, or Meraki
• Excellent problem solving, process management, and collaborative skills
• Possess strong sense of customer empathy and care deeply about top customer problems
• Strong ability to monitor and troubleshoot network performance and integrity. Resolve escalated issues by troubleshooting both cloud and local infrastructure.
• Experience with VMware virtualization environments
• Proven experience with Fortinet Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW). Physical and virtualized
• Hands-on experience with the following network monitoring and orchestration tools: VeloCloud Orchestrator, FortiManager, FAZ, PRTG, and LogicMonitor
• Industry certifications like Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), Juniper Certified Networks Certified Internet Expert (JNCIE), or Fortinet NSE7

Compensation:

Compensation includes a base salary of $108,800.00 - $181,400.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidates knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.

Benefits:

The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the companys needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.