Network Engineer

Network Engineer

Contract Role

Remote/Hybrid

Location Requirement: Candidate must reside within driving distance of Elmwood Park, NJ, to support occasional on-site requirements.

The Senior Network Engineer is responsible for designing, implementing, securing, optimizing, and maintaining enterprise network infrastructure in a clinical diagnostics laboratory environment.

This role plays a critical part in ensuring the availability, reliability, security, and performance of network services that support laboratory instrumentation, Laboratory Information Systems (LIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR), and other mission-critical business and clinical applications.

The ideal candidate brings extensive hands-on networking expertise, strong troubleshooting and problem-solving capabilities, and experience supporting complex, highly available enterprise environments.

The Senior Network Engineer will work closely with IT leadership, Network and Systems Engineering, laboratory operations, cybersecurity, and external vendors to maintain a resilient network infrastructure that supports business continuity, regulatory compliance, and ongoing technology initiatives.

The role requires on-site support for planned maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, network changes, and critical incidents when hands-on support is necessary. Some activities may take place outside normal business hours to minimize disruption to laboratory operations.

Responsibilities:

Network Engineering and Infrastructure Management

• Design, implement, configure, and maintain secure, scalable, and highly available enterprise network infrastructure.
• Lead the deployment, optimization, and troubleshooting of network technologies, including routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, wireless networks, VPNs, voice systems, and web security platforms.
• Develop and maintain network architecture, standards, configurations, policies, procedures, and operational best practices.
• Evaluate existing network infrastructure and recommend improvements to enhance performance, reliability, scalability, security, and operational efficiency.
• Maintain accurate network documentation, including network diagrams, configurations, IP address assignments, and infrastructure standards.

Network Operations and Troubleshooting

• Provide advanced technical support for complex network incidents escalated by the NOC, Service Desk, internal IT teams, end users, or monitoring systems.
• Diagnose and resolve network connectivity, routing, switching, performance, latency, and availability issues across enterprise environments.
• Monitor network health and performance metrics, including availability, utilization, latency, and throughput, and proactively address potential service disruptions.
• Participate in incident management, root-cause analysis, problem resolution, and corrective-action initiatives to minimize recurring issues and service interruptions.
• Participate in on-call rotations and respond to critical incidents outside normal business hours as required.

Security, Compliance, and Business Continuity

• Ensure network infrastructure is maintained in accordance with corporate security policies, industry best practices, vendor recommendations, and applicable regulatory and compliance requirements.
• Collaborate with Cybersecurity to address vulnerabilities, implement security controls, support remediation efforts, and maintain secure network configurations.
• Support network segmentation, firewall rule management, secure remote access, and other measures designed to protect sensitive data and critical systems.
• Contribute to business continuity, disaster recovery, and infrastructure resilience initiatives to support uninterrupted laboratory and business operations.
• Follow established change management procedures and ensure network changes are properly documented, tested, approved, and implemented.

Project Leadership and Collaboration

• Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance for network components of enterprise IT, data center, cloud, and laboratory technology projects.
• Collaborate with Systems Engineering, Database Operations, application teams, laboratory operations, and other stakeholders to plan and deliver infrastructure initiatives.
• Coordinate with vendors and third-party support organizations to troubleshoot complex issues, manage escalations, and ensure timely resolution.
• Manage multiple technical priorities, drive assigned projects to completion, and communicate risks, progress, and recommendations to IT leadership.
• Travel to the Elmwood Park data center or laboratory locations when necessary to support critical incidents, scheduled maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, and operational requirements.
• Perform other related duties and strategic assignments as directed by IT leadership.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Five or more years of progressive network engineering experience, including at least three years in a senior or lead engineering capacity within a medium- to large-scale enterprise environment.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, managing, and troubleshooting complex enterprise network infrastructures.
• Experience supporting highly available, business-critical environments. Experience in healthcare, clinical diagnostics, or other regulated environments is a plus.
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives, manage competing priorities, and deliver projects in a dynamic environment.

Core Networking Expertise

• Strong understanding of networking fundamentals, including the OSI and TCP/IP models, IPv4/IPv6 addressing, subnetting, super netting, and network design principles.
• Hands-on experience with routing protocols, including BGP and OSPF, and switching technologies, including VLANs, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), and network segmentation.
• Knowledge of DHCP, DNS, SNMP, wireless networking standards, VPN technologies (IPsec and SSL/TLS-based VPNs), and network traffic types, including unicast, multicast, and broadcast.
• Experience with network traffic analysis, and performance optimization.
• Strong troubleshooting skills using packet capture and network diagnostic tools such as Wireshark and network monitoring platforms such as Nagios or comparable solutions.

Network Security and Enterprise Technologies

• Hands-on experience with enterprise networking and security platforms from vendors such as Extreme Networks, Fortinet, Aruba, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, or comparable providers.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise firewall management, VPN solutions, wireless infrastructure, load balancing, web filtering, and secure remote access technologies.
• Experience with endpoint VPN solutions such as FortiClient, web security platforms such as Cisco Umbrella, and cloud networking services such as Microsoft Azure.
• Ability to evaluate network security risks, implement appropriate controls, and collaborate with cybersecurity teams to remediate vulnerabilities.

Professional and Interpersonal Skills

• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, critical-thinking, and problem-solving capabilities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work effectively across infrastructure, cybersecurity, application, operations, and vendor teams.
• Highly organized and detail-oriented, with a commitment to accurate documentation, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Self-motivated, accountable, and able to work independently in a remote environment while maintaining effective communication with distributed teams.