Technical Lead III, LAN/WAN

Purpose

This position is responsible for providing enterprise-wide technical leadership, strategic direction, and advanced engineering expertise for the organization's global network infrastructure. The Technical Lead III serves as the senior technical authority for LAN/WAN technologies, driving network strategy, technology standards, modernization initiatives, security alignment, and operational excellence across IT and Operational Technology (OT) environments. This role partners with business leaders, cybersecurity teams, infrastructure teams, and external vendors to ensure network solutions support current and future business objectives.

Job Description (Duties and Responsibilities)

• Serves as the senior technical authority for enterprise LAN, WAN, Wireless, Data Center, Cloud Networking, and OT networking environments, establishing technical direction, standards, and best practices across the organization.
• Defines and maintains enterprise network strategies, technology roadmaps, engineering standards, and lifecycle management plans to support business growth and operational excellence.
• Provides technical leadership across multiple network disciplines including routing and switching, SD-WAN, wireless networking, network security, cloud connectivity, network segmentation, and industrial networking.
• Leads the evaluation, selection, testing, and implementation of new networking technologies, ensuring alignment with business objectives, cybersecurity requirements, and operational support models.
• Drives large-scale global infrastructure initiatives including network modernization, resiliency improvements, acquisitions, manufacturing expansions, and technology refresh programs.
• Leads the design, implementation, and support of complex network solutions across physical, virtual, and industrial environments.
• Acts as the highest level technical escalation point for critical incidents, complex troubleshooting efforts, major outages, and performance-related issues.
• Leads root cause analysis activities and develops corrective and preventive actions to improve reliability, availability, and operational stability.
• Provides technical oversight for network monitoring, observability, performance management, capacity planning, and service availability initiatives.
• Develops recommendations for technology investments, capital planning, vendor selection, licensing strategies, and infrastructure lifecycle management.

Job Description (Duties and Responsibilities) (Continued)

• Provides mentorship, coaching, and technical guidance to network engineers and technical leads, fostering technical growth and knowledge sharing within the organization.
• Promotes operational excellence through automation, standardization, process improvement, and continuous service optimization.
• Supports mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and facility expansion efforts through planning, integration, migration, and operational readiness activities.
• Maintains awareness of industry trends, emerging technologies, and evolving business requirements, making recommendations that improve network capabilities and reduce operational risk.
• Presents technical recommendations, strategic initiatives, and business cases to leadership and key stakeholders.
• Assumes additional responsibilities as required in support of company objectives and strategic initiatives.
• Proven ability to mentor engineers, provide technical leadership, and drive accountability across project teams.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills with the ability to resolve highly complex technical issues.
• Exceptional verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Highly motivated, self-directed, customer-focused, and capable of operating independently
• Demonstrates flexibility in responding to unexpected business demands and critical production issues.
• Willingness to participate in after-hours support, maintenance activities, emergency response efforts, and on-call rotations as required.
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Requirements

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or equivalent relevant experience.
• 15+ years of experience supporting, engineering, and leading complex enterprise networking environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale enterprise network deployments, modernization efforts, migrations, and operational improvement initiatives.
• Expert-level knowledge of LAN, WAN, WLAN, SD-WAN, routing, switching, network security, OT, and enterprise connectivity technologies.
• Strong hands-on experience with Cisco networking platforms and related enterprise networking technologies.
• Advanced understanding of network security principles, segmentation strategies, Zero Trust concepts, and secure access technologies.
• Extensive experience with cloud networking, hybrid connectivity solutions, and integration of cloud services into enterprise network environments.
• Proven experience establishing technical standards, operational processes, monitoring strategies, and engineering best practices.
• Demonstrated success leading complex technical projects and influencing technology decisions across multiple teams and business functions.

Requirements (Continued)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong experience supporting manufacturing, industrial, or OT networking environments strongly preferred.
• Experience with Network Access Control (NAC), Cisco ISE, or equivalent segmentation and identity-based networking solutions strongly preferred.
• Experience with automation, scripting, APIs, infrastructure-as-code, and network operations automation technologies preferred.