Lead Network Engineer

Lead Network Engineer We are seeking a Lead Network Engineer with deep expertise in F5 BIG-IP DNS (GTM), BIG-IQ, NGINX Plus, Azure networking, and Infrastructure-as-Code automation. The Lead Engineer will support a multi-site enterprise load balancing and DNS environment, including provisioning and configuration of two new F5 BIG-IP DNS standalone nodes, software upgrades on four BIG-IP DNS nodes and one BIG-IQ management platform, validation of Wide IP and DNS configurations, and integration with an Arista-based BGP Anycast architecture. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on experience with F5 BIG-IP DNS/GTM administration, BIG-IQ lifecycle management, BGP routing, and Arista switching environments. In addition to F5 expertise, the consultant must possess extensive NGINX Plus experience, including NGINX as a Service (NGINXaaS) in Azure, Azure Load Balancers, high-availability NGINX deployments, custom server farms, and production application delivery environments. This is a highly automated infrastructure, requiring advanced experience with Terraform, Ansible, YAML, Jinja2 templates, GitHub-based workflows, Infrastructure-as-Code methodologies, and operational automation. The consultant should be comfortable reviewing, troubleshooting, enhancing, and maintaining existing automation frameworks while providing recommendations for scalability, resiliency, and operational best practices. Environment Overview: Four F5 BIG-IP DNS standalone nodes across two data center locations; one BIG-IQ management platform; Arista-based BGP Anycast architecture; NGINX Plus deployed as a front end to Azure Load Balancers; approximately 20 production NGINX Plus clusters deployed as HA pairs supporting enterprise LTM services; infrastructure managed through Terraform, Ansible, YAML, Jinja2 templates, GitHub, and VS Code. The ideal Lead Engineer will be capable of independently leading provisioning, upgrades, integration, automation, troubleshooting, and operational optimization efforts across F5, NGINX Plus, Azure, and network infrastructure platforms. Additional Information: Potential for contract extension. Will consider candidates within 50 miles of Evansville IN or Baltimore MD. Mandatory Skills: F5 BIG-IP DNS (GTM) Administration Provisioning and configuration of BIG-IP DNS/GTM Wide IP configuration and validation NGINX Plus NGINX Plus administration and support High-availability (HA) NGINX deployments Production application delivery environments Custom server farm configuration NGINX troubleshooting and optimization DNS load balancing and traffic management Troubleshooting DNS and GTM services BIG-IP DNS software upgrades Delan Associates Inc