Manager, Data Center Operations & Networking Engineering

Job Title

IT Manager, Data Center Operations & Network Engineering

Job Description

The IT Manager, Data Center Operations & Network Engineering is responsible for the strategic direction, operational excellence, reliability, security, and lifecycle management of the organization's on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, enterprise network infrastructure, and cloud-connected environments. This role leads teams responsible for physical data center operations, network engineering, telecommunications, and infrastructure services to ensure highly available, secure, scalable, and resilient technology platforms that support business-critical operations.

The position provides leadership for infrastructure service delivery, data center and network architecture, disaster recovery readiness, capacity planning, incident management, vendor oversight, and technology modernization. The manager partners with Information Security, systems and cloud engineering, application teams, business stakeholders, and service providers to align infrastructure capabilities with organizational growth, regulatory obligations, and operational priorities.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

On Premises Data Center Operations

• Lead day-to-day and long-term operations of enterprise-owned on-premises data centers, disaster recovery sites, and colocation facilities.
• Manage physical data center space, racks, cabinets, structured cabling, power utilization, cooling, environmental monitoring, and capacity forecasts.
• Coordinate installation, relocation, maintenance, and decommissioning of servers, storage, network equipment, and supporting infrastructure.
• Ensure physical security, access controls, maintenance procedures, documentation, and operational standards are consistently followed.
• Oversee facility incidents and planned maintenance involving generators, UPS systems, power distribution, cooling, fire suppression, and building services.
• Develop data center growth, consolidation, modernization, and lifecycle plans that balance resiliency, cost, capacity, and business risk.

Network Engineering and Architecture

• Lead the architecture, engineering, implementation, and lifecycle management of enterprise LAN, WAN, data center, internet, wireless, and remote-access networks.
• Oversee core routing and switching, firewalls, load balancers, DNS, DHCP, IP address management, VPN, SD-WAN, and network management platforms.
• Design resilient connectivity between on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, corporate locations, cloud platforms, business partners, and external clients.
• Establish network architecture standards for segmentation, redundancy, scalability, performance, security, and recoverability.
• Drive network modernization, automation, observability, configuration management, and infrastructure-as-code practices where appropriate.
• Partner with cloud and platform engineering teams on hybrid connectivity, cloud routing, private connectivity, network security controls, and traffic management.

Network Operations and Service Reliability

• Ensure 24x7 availability and performance of critical network and data center services through proactive monitoring, alerting, and operational readiness.
• Lead response to major network and infrastructure incidents, including technical escalation, stakeholder communication, service restoration, root cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Define and report service metrics for availability, latency, packet loss, capacity, incident trends, change success, and recovery performance.
• Oversee network capacity planning, circuit utilization, performance tuning, hardware refreshes, software upgrades, patching, and vulnerability remediation.
• Maintain accurate network diagrams, circuit inventories, configurations, support documentation, and operational runbooks.

Network Security and Compliance

• Partner with Information Security to implement secure network architectures, segmentation, firewall governance, zero trust principles, and secure remote access.
• Ensure infrastructure and network controls support applicable corporate security policies, audit requirements, and regulatory obligations.
• Coordinate vulnerability remediation, security assessments, access reviews, logging, evidence collection, and audit responses for data center and network services.
• Maintain separation of production, non-production, disaster recovery, management, partner, and user network zones based on approved security standards.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

• Maintain resilient data center and network architectures that support documented recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Plan and coordinate infrastructure failover tests, disaster recovery exercises, network recovery validation, and corrective action tracking.
• Ensure alternate connectivity, redundant carriers, equipment spares, backups, configurations, and recovery procedures are available and tested.
• Partner with business continuity, application, security, and infrastructure teams to improve enterprise resiliency.

Leadership and Team Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop network engineers, data center operations staff, and infrastructure professionals.
• Establish clear priorities, engineering standards, operational practices, on-call expectations, and service delivery accountability.
• Manage staffing, resource allocation, succession planning, technical development, and workload prioritization.
• Promote a culture of ownership, collaboration, continuous improvement, documentation, and disciplined change management.

Vendor, Carrier, and Financial Management

• Manage relationships with colocation providers, telecommunications carriers, internet service providers, hardware vendors, and managed service partners.
• Oversee circuits, contracts, renewals, service-level performance, licensing, warranties, and vendor escalations.
• Develop capital and operating budgets for data center, network, telecommunications, maintenance, and infrastructure lifecycle requirements.
• Identify cost optimization opportunities while preserving availability, security, performance, and operational continuity.

Strategic Planning and Governance

• Contribute to enterprise infrastructure strategy and multi-year roadmaps for on-premises data centers, network services, colocation, cloud connectivity, and disaster recovery.
• Evaluate technology and sourcing options and present investment recommendations, risks, dependencies, and measurable outcomes to leadership.
• Lead or support data center expansions, consolidations, relocations, migrations, technology refreshes, and network transformation initiatives.
• Ensure architecture decisions and operational changes follow established governance, change control, and risk management processes.

Supervisory Responsibilities

Manages assigned staff in the segment area. Responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the unit. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees; addressing complaints and resolving problems. Supports and enforces all company policies and procedures in a fair and consistent manner, taking corrective action whenever necessary.

Client Responsibilities

This is an internal and external client facing position that requires excellent customer service skills and interpersonal communication skills (listening/verbal/written). One must be able to; manage difficult or emotional client situations; Respond promptly to client needs; Solicit client feedback to improve service; Respond to requests for service and assistance from clients; Meet commitments to clients.

Qualifications

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience

BS/BA degree or equivalent plus 5+ years of experience; 1 year of SME in respective area(s); and 3+ years of supervisory experience; 4 years of MedImpact experience plus an appropriate external leadership training program and internal mentorship with a seasoned leader (Dir+) that must completed within 12 months in new position may substitute for the supervisory experience requirement.

Computer Skills

• Demonstrated knowledge of enterprise routing and switching, firewalls, WAN and SD-WAN, load balancing, VPN, data center networking, and hybrid cloud connectivity.
• Working knowledge of server, virtualization, storage, backup, monitoring, disaster recovery, and IT service management practices.

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

CCNP, CCIE, Azure Network Engineer Associate, ITIL, or comparable industry certification preferred

Other Skills and Abilities

• Experience operating enterprise-owned on-premises data centers and/or colocation facilities in a highly available environment.
• Experience managing major incidents, technical vendors, telecommunications carriers, budgets, contracts, and infrastructure projects.
• Experience with Azure networking and