Lead Director – Network Core Infrastructure Operations

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Lead a team of engineers responsible for the core routing and switching infrastructure that encompasses applications, users, locations, datacenters, and multi-cloud environments.

• Take ownership of the operational health, performance, and security of WAN, LAN, and core network services.

• Supervise the design, implementation, and maintenance of resilient WAN and LAN networks.

• Manage routing and switching operations, including turn-ups, modifications, and remediation efforts.

• Operate and protect DNS, DHCP, and IPAM services using Infoblox.

• Collaborate with identity and security teams to maintain NTP and network authentication services.

• Implement and manage SDN and SD-WAN capabilities, including Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN and ACI.

• Oversee multi-cloud connectivity and coordinate carrier/WAN services.

• Ensure comprehensive network monitoring is captured, acknowledged, reported, and consolidated into a unified view.

• Generate automated reports on network health, outages, and status updates.

• Identify network issues and vulnerabilities, implementing preventive measures.

• Lead the resolution of complex, high-impact network issues, including conducting root-cause analysis.

• Develop and enforce network change-control processes.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement changes with minimal operational disruptions.

• Review daily network changes and strive for a high success rate on approved modifications.

• Lead, develop, mentor, and provide career advancement opportunities for a Level 1–3 network operations team.

• Manage staffing and shift coverage effectively.

• Develop and monitor network performance, reliability, and efficiency KPIs.

• Lead capacity planning initiatives and forecast investment needs.

• Drive governed automation for diagnostics, configuration compliance, and reporting.

• Embrace AI-assisted/AIOps capabilities where beneficial, with engineers reviewing and approving recommendations.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in enterprise network infrastructure operations and engineering.

• More than 5 years of hands-on experience with enterprise routing and switching on Cisco platforms, including BGP, OSPF or EIGRP, VLANs, spanning tree, VXLAN/EVPN, VRFs, QoS, and ACLs.

• At least 3 years of experience in leading teams.

• A minimum of 3 years of experience operating core network services such as DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (Infoblox) at an enterprise scale.

• More than 3 years of WAN and LAN experience across datacenter, campus, and multi-site environments, including MPLS and/or SD-WAN.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience (HS diploma plus 4 years of relevant experience).

• Familiarity with load balancing (F5), firewall, proxy, and network-edge segmentation.

• Experience with incident, problem, and change management in a 24x7 operations environment.

• Monitoring and observability experience is essential.

• Scripting/automation experience, such as with Python or Ansible.

• Understanding of AI-driven network operations (AIOps).

• Experience with streaming telemetry, SNMP, NetFlow/IPFIX, and syslog data pipelines at scale.

• Advanced knowledge of automation/infrastructure-as-code using NETCONF/YANG, Ansible, or Terraform.

• Hands-on experience with Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN, ACI, or Catalyst Center (DNA Center).

• Multi-cloud networking experience, particularly with AWS and/or Azure.

• Experience within a large, regulated enterprise environment such as healthcare, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.

• Industry certifications such as Cisco CCNP or CCIE (or equivalent), along with ITIL, are preferred.

• Strong leadership, communication, and mentoring skills are required.

🏝️ Benefits

• CVS Health bonus, commission, or short-term incentive program.

• Equity award program.

• Medical coverage.

• Dental coverage.

• Vision coverage.

• Paid time off.

• Retirement savings options.

• Wellness programs.

• Additional resources supporting physical, emotional, and financial well-being.