Associate Network Engineer (Hybrid)

Associate Network Engineer

As an Associate Network Engineer, you will help support Kohl's enterprise network across stores, corporate offices, data centers, distribution centers, and cloud-connected environments. This role is focused on learning and supporting reliable, secure, and scalable network services for retail operations, including store connectivity, routing, wireless, switching, SD-WAN, network access control, segmentation, and network automation.

You will work with network engineers, infrastructure, security, cloud, store technology, operations, vendors, and support teams to troubleshoot issues, complete network changes, maintain documentation, and support network modernization efforts. This is a hands-on technical role that may require local office, lab, and data center support for equipment installation, migrations, maintenance windows, and incident response.

What You'll Do

• Support enterprise and retail network technologies, including wireless, switching, SD-WAN, Cisco ISE, routing, segmentation, and internet/circuit connectivity.
• Assist with troubleshooting network issues involving store systems, wireless clients, POS/payment connectivity, DNS/DHCP, routing, firewalls, SD-WAN, and application reachability.
• Participate in network changes by following documented implementation steps, performing validation, updating documentation, and assisting with rollback activities when needed.
• Support hands-on activities in local office, lab, and data center environments, including hardware installation, migrations, inventory, and maintenance-window work.
• Monitor network alerts, review logs, gather troubleshooting data, and escalate issues with clear notes and supporting evidence.
• Collaborate with network engineers, cross-functional teams, and vendors to resolve incidents and support project work.
• Help maintain network standards, diagrams, runbooks, monitoring, and troubleshooting procedures.
• Learn and contribute to network automation and operational improvements using tools such as Ansible, GitLab, Python, APIs, templates, and source-controlled documentation.
• Continue developing expertise in areas such as routing, wireless, SD-WAN, network access control, automation, and cloud networking.
• Participate in an on-call rotation for incident escalations.
• Additional tasks may be assigned

What Skills You Have

• Foundational understanding of networking concepts, including TCP/IP, VLANs, subnetting, routing, DNS, DHCP, NAT, VPNs, ACLs, and common troubleshooting tools.
• Exposure to enterprise networking, network operations, help desk, infrastructure support, internships, lab work, technical training, or equivalent experience.
• Ability to troubleshoot technical issues using a structured approach and escalate with clear details when needed.
• Ability to follow documented procedures for network changes, validation, documentation, and incident response.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical issues clearly to technical and non-technical teams.
• Ability to work collaboratively with infrastructure, security, cloud, application, vendor, and support teams.
• Ability and willingness to support hands-on local office and data center activities as needed.
• Interest in developing deeper expertise in routing, retail/store networking, SD-WAN, wireless, network security, and automation.
• Willingness to learn new technologies and participate in operational support responsibilities, including on-call rotation.

Preferred

• Experience or familiarity with Cisco Meraki, Cisco ISE, Cisco Catalyst, Cisco SD-WAN, or similar enterprise networking platforms.
• Experience or familiarity with retail, branch, campus, warehouse, or distributed-site networking.
• Exposure to wireless troubleshooting, guest wireless, 802.1X, MAB, NAC, or endpoint authentication.
• Exposure to routing protocols such as BGP, OSPF, or EIGRP.
• Exposure to network segmentation concepts for environments such as POS, payment systems, guest access, IoT, cameras, printers, handhelds, and corporate endpoints.
• Experience with basic network troubleshooting tools such as ping, traceroute, packet captures, logs, monitoring platforms, interface counters, SNMP, syslog, or NetFlow.
• Exposure to network automation, scripting, or infrastructure-as-code tools such as Ansible, GitLab, Python, Bash, APIs, or templates.
• Exposure to cloud connectivity or cloud networking in GCP, AWS, or Azure.
• Exposure to data center networking technologies such as Cisco ACI, Nexus, VMware networking, Nutanix AHV networking, load balancing, or firewall integration.
• Certifications such as CCNA, Network+, cloud networking, or equivalent experience.